


Lucy's Quest: A Dawn Treader Story

by LucyCrewe11 (Raphaela_Crowley)



Series: Lucy's Quest [2]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Basically a soap opera on a boat, Drama, F/M, Romance, Unrelated Pevensies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 42,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27608786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/LucyCrewe11
Summary: Now a little older and wiser, Edmund and Lucy find themselves onboard the Dawn Treader along with their bratty cousin Eustace.(It's pretty much just "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" but in AU with Romance; let's not kid ourselves here.)
Relationships: Caspian/Ramandu's Daughter | Liliandil, Edmund Pevensie/Lucy Pevensie, Peter Pevensie/Susan Pevensie
Series: Lucy's Quest [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017352
Kudos: 11





	1. The start of the summer holidays

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2009

"Please mum." Edmund pressed his hands together like he was about to pray and made a piteous face at Mrs. Pevensie that made him seem much younger than he really was. "Come on, I'm begging."

"No, Edmund." Mrs. Pevensie said firmly.

"But I don't want to stay at Uncle Harold's house." Edmund scrunched up his nose in disgust. "They always keep the windows open; even when it's raining. I could get sick and die." He moved his hands in front of his throat dramatically.

"Look I know they live a little... _differently..._ than we do." Mrs. Pevensie seemed to be struggling to hold back a laugh. "But that's no reason to judge them."

"I'm not judging them." Edmund said. "It's their evil spawn I'm trying to avoid."

"Don't talk that way about your cousin, Edmund." Mrs. Pevensie said sharply, although deep down she felt her nephew could use a good spanking and wished her sister-in-law would slap him just once to let him know he was in disgrace.

Edmund sighed, he knew he wasn't going to get out of spending the summer holidays at his aunt and uncle's house but he'd felt he had to try. At least Lucy would be coming with him.

He still blushed inwardly every time he thought of what had happened between them during their last trip to Narnia; the one on which they'd discovered that Susan and Edmund's birth parents were King Frank and Queen Helen, the first king and queen of Narnia. The one during which, he and Lucy had shared a brief kiss. It was brief because both had been feeling so shy that they pulled away almost as soon as their lips touched.

Sitting at the kitchen table thinking about all of these things that had happened about a year ago, Edmund fiddled with the golden ring on his middle finger. Lucy had brought it back to him from the ruins of Anvard. He was surprised that his parents hadn't noticed it yet, seeing as he never took it off now not even when he bathed. But maybe it was for the best seeing as it would be much too hard to explain it to them anyway.

It had more than surprised them when they'd found out that Peter and Susan were courting (Edmund had yet to tell them how he felt about Lucy). They'd gotten used to it-sort of-but they never quite seemed to understand it. How could they understand when they didn't know what had happened in Narnia. What with Susan being engaged to someone else and Peter nearly getting hung by the neck until death...it was just too much to tell in detail.

"Edmund!" Peter burst through the door holding up a piece of paper waving it excitedly to and fro. "Guess what?"

"What?" Edmund asked.

"I got into medical school in America!" Peter told him, unable to stop smiling.

"No way!" Edmund jumped up and ran over to him. "Let me see."

Peter handed him the letter he'd just gotten in the mail. "Read it and weep."

"You're going to America." Edmund said with a proud grin.

"Yeah." Peter was fairly beaming with joy. "I'm going to America."

Mrs. Pevensie-who had been washing the dishes-wiped her hands, walked over and took the letter away from Edmund so that she could read it herself.

"Peter, this is wonderful!" She bursting into tears as she pulled her son into a tight embrace. "I'm so proud of you. My little boy, all grown up."

"I can't breathe, Mum." Peter gasped.

"Sorry, sweetie." She loosened her grip on him. Then for a moment she looked a little confused. "Wait, I didn't know you applied for this." She motioned down at the name of the school mentioned in the letter.

"I did but I didn't tell anyone." Peter explained. "I was told it was very unlikely that I would get in and I didn't want everyone to be disappointed."

"Well, I am so proud of you." Mrs. Pevensie said, hugging him again.

After his mum let go of him, Peter turned to Edmund. "Ed, I need to talk to you about something in the other room."

Edmund followed him into the living room. "What's up?"

"I need an opinion and I don't know who else to ask." Peter pulled a small blue velvet box out of his coat pocket and handed it to Edmund.

Edmund opened it and saw a glittering diamond ring in the center. "It's lovely, but I can't let you spend this kind of money on me."

Peter slapped him upside the head. "It's for Susan!"

"I was kidding." Edmund laughed, rubbing the back of his head.

"Do you think she'll like it?" Peter asked nervously.

"Probably." Edmund shrugged.

"What do you think she'll say?" Peter pressed.

"Something along the lines of 'thanks for the ring' and then a bunch of lovey-dovey nonsense." Edmund rolled his eyes.

"I'm not just giving her the ring." Peter explained, raising both of his eyebrows at the same time pointedly.

"You're not?" Edmund frowned in confusion.

"No, I'm going to um...well ask her something..." Peter stammered.

Edmund finally caught on. "Oh!"

"Yeah." Peter nodded.

"Wow." Was all Edmund could think to say.

"I'm so nervous." Peter admitted, fiddling with the hinges of the blue box. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"You'll be fine." Edmund patted him on the back in an attempt to reassure him.

"What if she says no?" Peter blurted out.

"Why would she say no?" Edmund half-laughed out of surprise.

"Why would she say 'yes'?" Peter retorted.

"Because she loves you." Edmund reminded him. "She left Narnia and came back to be with you, remember?"

"Yes, I remember." Peter said, thinking of his intense joy when he'd seen her running towards him at the subway station.

"Then don't worry." Edmund told him.

"You don't think..." Peter started.

"Don't think what?" Edmund asked.

"Don't think she regrets coming back?" Peter said insecurely.

"No, Peter, I don't." Edmund told him, grabbing onto his shoulders to get his attention. "Get it through your head. She. Loves. You."

"Alright, alright." Peter muttered, pulling away from him.

"Good." Edmund seemed satisfied now. "So when are you going to ask her?"

"This evening." Peter decided.

Susan stood at her bedroom window watching the last remains of sunlight slip away. She wasn't sure what she would be doing during the summer holidays. She could probably just stay with a friend. Her parents were going to France together-just the two of them-and leaving Lucy and Edmund with Uncle Harold. They'd assured her that she was welcome to stay there too; of course she turned them down. A chilly house with a bratty cousin didn't sound like fun. She wondered where Peter was spending the summer. He hadn't told her yet.

"Susan?" Peter knocked at the door.

"Come in." Susan told him.

He opened the door a crack and slipped quietly into the room. "I wanted to tell you something."

She wondered why the expression on his face looked sort of grave. "What's wrong?"

"Actually, nothing." Peter pulled the letter he'd gotten in the mail out of his pants pocket, unfolded it and showed it to her. "I got into medical school in America."

Susan read the letter and put her hand to her mouth. She knew this was a good thing for him but she wished desperately that he'd choice a school in England. If he was in America she would hardly ever get to see him! It was bad enough that they were apart during the normal school terms but at least then they were in the same country on the same land mass.

"So you're going to America." Susan said softly. It was statement not a question. "In the fall?"

"Actually, they want me to go over there this summer and get set up." He pulled a ticket out of his pocket and showed it to her. "I've already got my passport and everything."

"I see." Susan bit her lip and tried to hold back the tears that were forming in her eyes. "I'm really happy for you." She shifted away from him and looked down at the floor. "I'm probably going to stay with Maggie this summer. Her parents said they wouldn't mind."

Peter clicked his tongue. "But if you go there, who do I give this extra ticket to?" He pulled a second ticket out of his pocket.

"What?" Susan gasped, reaching for the slip of paper in his hand.

"Surprise, you're coming with me!" Peter announced proudly.

"Peter, I can't." Susan shook her head. "I mean, just the two of us? Together?" She looked slightly pained. "I want to, you don't know how badly I want to...but I can't...it wouldn't be right...we can't..."

"Which reminds me." Peter said, struggling to remain calm on the outside, although inside he still hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he was going to throw up. He got down on one knee and took out the ring box. "Susan I wanted to ask you something..."

Right outside the door, Edmund and Lucy leaned with their ears pressed against the wall listening to everything they were saying.

"He's going to ask her!" Lucy whisper-squealed excitedly.

"Shh..." Edmund waved his hand in her direction. "I can't hear what they're saying."

"From the first day we met when you and Edmund walked into the house out of the snow, I knew I'd found someone special." Peter was saying while Susan looked down at him crying. "I've been hopelessly in love with you since I was eight years old-you must know that by now-I guess what I'm trying to say-I mean ask-is,"

"Yes!" Susan blurted out through her tears before he could actually ask the question.

"Will you m-wait, did you just say yes?" Peter looked up at her hopefully.

Susan nodded and smiled at him. "Yes." She said in a much softer tone now.

He took the ring out of the box and gently slipped it on her ring finger; unable to stop smiling the whole time.

"I can't believe you and I are engaged and going to America." Susan whispered as he pulled her close to him. "Wait...when are we going?"

"Two weeks?" Peter smiled sheepishly knowing that meant they'd have to get married on pretty short notice.

"Alright." Susan leaned in and started kissing him. "Works for me."

"You sure you don't mind?" Peter asked in between kisses. "That it'll have to be so soon and that I can't afford anything big?"

"Of course not." Susan assured him.

"Really?" Peter double checked.

"Peter Pevensie, I thought you were going to leave me and go to America!" Susan poked him playfully in the ribs. "That I minded. But this? This I couldn't be happier about."

"Good." Peter breathed a sigh of relief as Susan leaned forward and rested her head on his upper shoulder near his neck.

On the other side of the door, Lucy and Edmund looked at each other and smiled.

And so began the summer holidays on which this story takes place.


	2. Bother Eustace!

The scorching summer heat had already begun on the day that Edmund and Lucy had to take a train to Cambridge where they're aunt and uncle lived. The only shade was from a small tree that towered over one of the lower benches. Two elderly grandpas had completely collapsed; draped over the spinster-inducing wood leaving only the butt-burning seats for everyone else. Lucy had never been so thankful for her wide-brimmed sun hat. It seemed to be more than anyone else traveling that day remembered to bring.

"Edmund, is the train late?" Lucy asked, knowing Peter had given him a new pocket watch as a parting gift when he and his young bride went off to America.

"No, Lucy, it isn't." Edmund answered, reaching up to wipe the beats of sweat off of his forehead. "Everything just feels longer in this heat."

"Are you sure?" Lucy asked.

Edmund sighed and pulled the silver watch chain out of his pocket; he glanced down at the time. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Eustace is going to be even nastier now that the piece of wedding cake we saved him is spoiled." Lucy said, thinking of the goopy napkin-bound mess tucked away in one of their bags.

"It's best to say we didn't save him any." Edmund decided. "If we say it got spoiled he'll call us liars and make beastly jokes about us all night. We pretend we forgot all about him he may just turn up his nose at us and go away and sulk for a bit."

"It was a splendid wedding all the same." Lucy sighed happily.

And indeed it had been. It had been very small and the main celebrations after the ceremony had been held at their own small home. Of course Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie had, at first, tried to talk Peter and Susan out of having the wedding at all. They were both too young, they said. But in the end, they let them have their own way; although Mr. Pevensie had muttered, "But if you ask me it's a terribly rash thing to do." until everyone had grown sick of it. But the wedding went off well and never had their been a more beautiful, happily, absolutely beaming, bride that anyone in all of London could remember.

Lucy would never forget the look on Susan's face when Peter slipped the gold wedding-band on her finger. She thought she had never seen anyone look so pretty. Even if Susan hadn't been beautiful by nature, she would have been at that moment, no one who wears an expression like the one she'd had on could ever been considered ugly in the least. Shortly after, Peter and Susan hugged and kissed Edmund, Lucy, and their parents goodbye before leaving for the inn they were staying at (They said it was so they could catch their boat on time the next day but Edmund always thought it was mostly because they wanted some time alone although he never said this out-loud)

"It was alright I suppose." Edmund agreed. "The bride and groom were happy."

"Happy doesn't seem to be the right word." Lucy said, her facial-expression suddenly more grown-up and distant than before. "I hope if I ever get married, it'll be as wonderful."

"I hope I'm the groom." Edmund blurted out thoughtlessly in a low almost inaudible tone of voice.

"What?" Lucy hadn't completely heard him but she could have guessed what he had just said if she'd had to and was taken slightly aback.

Edmund, suddenly realizing what he'd just said, turned very red in the face and quickly added, " Nothing, I was er...um...uh...singing...to myself..." He invented lamely.

Lucy crinkled her brow in confusion. "Alright, then."

After that they both stared at their own hands until the train chugged in with a loud roar and then a screech.

"Look, the train's here." Edmund said, quickly grabbing their things and getting ready to board. Lucy smiled and followed him on.

When they were little, they used to fight for the window seat. Now he simply didn't sit there, knowing she would. He freely gave it up not because he had to, because he wanted to. Somehow this made Lucy feel slightly awkward as if part of their relationship had changed. They had acted slightly different around each other ever since their last trip to Narnia but not noticeably so. Now though, it seemed to be changing again. They were maturing so much faster than either of them had expected. Neither knew how to feel about this.

Lucy spent the ride watching the black shadow of the train running along the ground below until she felt dizzy and had to look up. Then they came to a stop and the conductor told them they had arrived in Cambridge.

Stepping off the train, Lucy and Edmund saw their aunt and uncle. Both looked bored, hot, and distracted as if this was the very last place they wanted to be. Eustace was standing about a foot behind them and ran forward when he saw his cousins approaching.

Knowing it was not because he missed them and was happy to see them again, they felt very irritated even though he hadn't said a word yet. Of course formerly being a king and queen, they smiled with complete grace and said hello.

"The train was late." Eustace said sullenly

"No it wasn't." Lucy looked puzzled. "It was right on time, right Ed?"

Edmund shrugged and nodded. He preferred not to argue with the little know-it-all but sweet little Lucy had always been honest about these sort of things.

"Course you don't know as much about railways as-" Eustace started before Alberta called him over and asked if he would like a vitamin water to after being in the heat all that time.

Harold remembered his manners and told his wife to offer one to Edmund and Lucy as well. They were so thirsty that they accepted it; gulping it down so quickly that Eustace started on about health facts on swallowing too much air when you drank.

"You're so lucky to have a room of your own." Edmund whispered to Lucy when he was sure Eustace wasn't listening. They were entering the small house which rather than being cooled by fans like any other house might have been, was just as hot as it was outside. "I have to share with him."

Lucy nodded. She would have gladly offered to share her room and bed with Edmund as they had done in Miraz's castle but of course that wouldn't have been appropriate. It seemed that in the course of one year, she was becoming a lady whether she liked it or not. You couldn't share a room with a boy without grown-ups looking disgusted and staring at you in horrified wonder; never knowing how innocent your request was. Her own parents had stopped letting them sleep together at night. Perhaps even though Edmund never told them how he felt about her, they suspected it on their own or else, seeing Peter and Susan, understood it was a possibility now that they were getting older.

Later in the evening, the heat let up just a little and there was a slight but very refreshing breeze in the air. Eustace refused to go out saying the night air was bad for him and Alberta agreed, not even wanting to let Lucy and Edmund out to begin with but Harold-who being Helen Pevensie's brother had just a little more sense than his wife-talked her into it.

"Just for an hour then." Aunt Alberta gave in at last. "It is their first day here after all, I suppose it's alright."

"It's hardly nighttime." Edmund whispered to Lucy as they left the door. "I can still burp my lunch."

Lucy giggled as they walked out to the small square-shaped back yard. It was small and prim and there was very little exciting about it. At home, their own backyard always had a comfortable place to have a cookout and a swing all set up. Here there was nothing.

Or so it at first seemed. In a small trash pile that Alberta hadn't gotten hauled off to the dump yet, Edmund discovered a small smooth wooden board with holes on the sides. And with a little bit of scrap rope and a little help from his pocket knife, Edmund fastened these to a thick low-hanging branch on the one large tree in the yard.

Lucy watched him work, smiling. "But wont Aunt Alberta be upset?"

"Why?" Edmund asked, tightening the rope so that it was firm and didn't wobble. Peter had done this for all three of them when they were younger-both in England and Narnia-and Edmund had paid close enough attention to remember how. "I can just take it down when we leave."

"Is it ready?" Lucy asked, noticing he had stopped making knots in the rope.

Edmund placed his hand on the hanging board to double-check it for firmness. "Yes." He stood back and admired his handy work. A simple but appealing-looking swing was now set up. Looking over at Lucy he added, "Is it too high up for you?"

"No, I don't think so." Lucy answered, taking his hand as he helped her up onto the swing anyway.

"Want me to push you?" Edmund offered.

"Sure." Lucy stopped pumping the air with her legs so that the swing went back towards him.

Slowly and gently, he pushed her back each time it came towards him. They fell into a sort of comfortable rhythm and it seemed like only a few seconds until the hour they were allowed outside was over and they had to come inside.

"You shouldn't have hung that ugly thing from our tree." Eustace said nastily, leaning back on his dinning room chair; looking out the window as he spoke.

"It's called a swing." Edmund said shortly, picking at the vegetables on his plate.

"As long as they remember to take it down before they leave." Harold said, taking a big bite of some sort of crape that both Edmund and Lucy thought tasted rather like cardboard.

"I suppose neither of you remembered to save me a crumb of wedding cake." Eustace grumped, scowling at them.

Edmund and Lucy glanced at each other and choked back a laugh.

"I didn't want any cake from an unholy wedding anyway." Eustace's tone changed and became dangerously spiteful.

Edmund stopped with his fork now half way to his mouth. "Beg pardon?"

"You know, brothers and sisters marrying and all that." Eustace said curtly, with an annoyingly cool shrug of his shoulders.

"They aren't related." Lucy reminded him.

"So? It's still bound to start some sort of uproar in your community if people in the same household go running off to America together, living in sin and what not." Eustace said stupidly.

"You don't know what you're talking about." Edmund said. "It's not living in sin if they're married."

"Not now it isn't." Eustace said smartly. He leaned back on his chair; smiling smugly. "They haven't always been married."

Edmund stretched out his leg and kicked his foot against Eustace's chair so that it fell back.

"Whoa!" Exclaimed Eustace, falling over.

"How many times have I told you not to lean back in your chair like that?" Alberta gasped, rushing over to her son's side.

The next morning, Lucy was unpacking in her room when she happened to look up at the picture that hand been hung on the opposite wall. It was the only painting in the house she, Edmund, Peter, and Susan liked. The rest were dull and uninteresting. She'd of course seen it during her many visits since she was a small girl but now she noticed something different about it. It looked sort of Narnian. She felt a pang of home-sickness for the land she had once ruled over and looked away. A half second later, she looked back deciding that even looking was better than nothing.

"Lucy?" the door creaked open and Edmund walked in.

"How did you sleep?" Lucy asked him.

"Awfully." Edmund shuddered. "Eustace talks about grades and school marks in his sleep. I swear the little beast is going to drive me mad."

"He didn't need to be so nasty about Peter and Susan last night." Lucy said, clearly offended. "What does he mean 'living in sin'?" Although she had been a grown-up queen in Narnia, she wasn't terribly familiar with that phrase because none of the Narnians or Archenlanders used it and their parents didn't use it either.

Edmund's face went a bit red. "You might want to ask that when you're a little older." He paused for a moment. "But just for the record, it's all lies."

"Of course it is." Lucy said, taking a seat on the bed.

Edmund sighed and took a seat beside her. He opened his mouth as if to say something but then closed it again.

Lucy leaned closer to him and his hand curled around her own. Leaning forward, his lips came closer to her's; when they'd almost made contact, the door swung open and they heard a bratty little gasp followed by, "Alberta! Alberta!"

Bother, Eustace! Edmund thought pulling away from Lucy. He ruins everything.


	3. Welcome aboard the Dawn Treader

"Isn't she such a very Narnian ship?" Lucy said, looking up at the painting on the wall. The romantic moment was short lived thanks to Eustace's interruption but they still hadn't moved from their spots on the bed.

"Hmm?" Edmund muttered absent-mindedly; he was still thinking about how badly he wished he was a school yard bully about to shove Eustace's head in the toilet (as a former king of Narnia he would never do such a thing but that didn't stop him from thinking about it sometimes).

"The ship in the painting." Lucy explained.

Edmund followed her gaze up into the wall and sighed when he realized she was right. It _did_ look Narnian. A lovely little sailing ship with a front shaped like a dragon's head; small but sweet and comfortingly familiar. It was no wonder that Alberta didn't like it, she never had been one to appreciate the little things in life.

"I miss it there." Edmund admitted.

"Narnia, oh my Narnia." Lucy said loyally, thinking-it must be confessed-more about Aslan than the actual land of Narnia.

"It will always be home." Edmund said softly.

"Still playing that stupid game?" Eustace had reappeared in the doorway and was leaning there with his head against the wooden frame. He rolled his eyes. "Alberta isn't home and Harold wont listen to me but don't worry, I'm still going to tell on you."

"Just ignore him." Edmund said shortly.

Eustace noticed that Lucy was looking at the painting. "Do you like that picture?"

"Oh, don't get him started on art!" Edmund exclaimed.

"I do like it." Lucy had already admitted.

"Why?" was Eustace's snotty remark.

Standing up, Lucy walked towards the painting with a look of wonder and joy in her eyes. "Don't you see how lovely it is, Cousin? It looks so real. As if the waves were really going up and down."

Eustace who had only been on a boat once (Leaving him horribly sea-sick) noticed that she was speaking the truth. The water indeed seemed to be going up and down. What was wrong with that thing? It shouldn't have been moving at all. It hadn't a right to, what did it think it was, a cinema? He took a step closer to it.

He quickly looked away from the picture and changed the subject. "I think you don't know what you're talking about, you're just a stupid girl Lucy."

"She's not stupid, you're stupid." Edmund retorted bitterly.

"At least I don't go on about talking Lions." Eustace said meanly, remembering a private conversation that he'd secretly been listening to earlier that year when he'd visited the Pevensies for the winter holidays.

Aslan was a touchy spot with Lucy; she loved the Lion so much that it sometimes hurt in the center of her liver like a deathly ache and she got very upset when people who hadn't a right to mention him did so mockingly.

Edmund noticed her turning a little red in the face and made a slashing motion across his neck signaling for Eustace to shut up.

Eustace, mistaking her new colour for embarrassment rather than anger, ignored Edmund and went on, "The way you talk about him, you'd think he was the most important creature in the world."

"He is." Lucy said in a low-almost growling-voice. And to her, indeed he was. He meant everything to her. Even Edmund secretly knew that if he could ever make her care for him-maybe even love him-he would always come second to her love for Aslan; not that he minded at all, it was just a fact he knew.

But Eustace was too stupid to see this and went on jeering about Aslan saying such horrible things that no matter how nicely Edmund whispered, "Don't listen to him, Lu. He doesn't know what he's saying." Lucy found herself getting more filled with rage every moment until at last she could stand it no more and in an aggravated furry lunged at her cousin.

In spite of the fact that this was not a pleasant scene to witness, Edmund couldn't help chuckling when Eustace's feet flew over his head after Lucy threw the first punch.

"Oh, god." Eustace wailed, long forgetting that just last week he had declared rather rudely to a friendly door to door minister that there was no god and to go away and stop bothering them; slamming the door in the poor elderly man's face. "She's broken my nose." Lucy was still on top of him when he started much harder than any boy who has only been hit once by a rather small-though very angry girl-has a right to cry.

"Lucy, get off of him." Edmund said, reaching over to grab her by the arm and pull her knee of Eustace's upper stomach. He looked down at Eustace and added, "And you, please stop that awful noise, it's not that bad. your nose isn't even bleeding."

"It is so bleeding!" Eustace sobbed childishly, pointing to a small the size of an ant on the carpet.

Edmund rolled his eyes. It was one lousy drop and it wasn't bleeding anymore now. What a wimp!

"I'm going to tell Alberta!" Eustace cried. "Tell her you hit me, just wait! You'll be in such trouble. You too, Edmund."

"What did I do?" Edmund asked.

"You probably taught her that awful slamming." Sobbed Eustace. "Being a gutter child and all that."

"I am not a gutter child!" Edmund said furiously. How dare he!

Before another fight could start, the three of them were suddenly hit by a big wave of sea water. "Ow!" They all exclaimed at once, looking this way and that for the source of the water.

"It's the painting!" Edmund gasped, pointing to the sea; which seemed more real than ever before. The waves going up and down not like a grainy cartoon strip but as if they were being seen in real life.

"Don't be silly." Eustace said, glaring at both of them. "This is some trick you two are playing on me and it's a jolly mean one!"

"It's not a trick." Lucy told him truthfully; shivering where she stood from behind cold and soaked through with water. "That painting really is moving."

Next, strange winds seemed to burst from the painting and wipe around the room as if trying to whisper a message in their ears. Lucy felt her hair getting pushed this way and that and Edmund felt his eyes watering from the salty smell. Boring workbooks and self-help books flew off the shelf on the other side of the room as the wind grew stronger pulling the three children closer to the painting like a magnet pulls metal.

"I'll smash the rotten thing!" Bawled Eustace, jumping forward.

"Don't!" Edmund tried to grab onto him, remembering how magic always felt when it was calling them into another world.

"Edmund!" Lucy screamed, ducking to avoid being hit in the head by one of the flying books.

She saw much to her surprise and horror, Eustace and Edmund being sucked away into what had once appeared to be an ordinary painting on the wall of the guest bedroom. For a moment she stood alone in the room which seemed to suddenly grow quiet. But then, a very different sort of wind came and picked her up. She rode it as though she was sitting side-saddle on a horse. It was very much like the sort of wind girls in the old fairy-stories rode on when they were traveling to unknown realms.

This magical wind carried her into the painting where she hovered over the sea. She saw Eustace almost drown due to panicking like the little fool he was and she saw Edmund dive down to save him. She didn't know if they could see her. She waved and called down to them but they didn't seem to hear her.

She leaned too far off the wind-seat and fell suddenly right into the cold water a little ways away from Edmund and Eustace. She didn't lose her head even for a moment, remembering to kick off her shoes as she swam towards them. She tried to scream out, "Ed!" But salt water got into her mouth. It didn't matter, he saw her anyway and swam towards her dragging a sullen, thrashing, brat of a Eustace behind him.

They got closer to the boat they had seen in the painting and someone on board must have seen them and known that they needed his help because all at once, a strangely familiar man dived down into the water, grabbed onto the three of them and pulled them into the ship.

Lucy coughed up about a jug's worth of salt water on their rescuer before she recognized him. "Caspian!"

He beamed at her and Edmund. "By the Lion, it is you!" He laughed, moving his long damp hair away from his forehead. "I thought you looked familiar. Welcome back!" He pulled Edmund and Lucy into a very tight group hug. The he glanced over at the other boy; this one he didn't know. "Who is this?"

"My cousin." Lucy answered.

"How nice to meet you." Caspian extended his hand to shake Eustace's. "I'm King Caspian of Narnia."

Eustace's eyes narrowed at the word 'Narnia' and then he said very shortly and crossly, "I'm a republican."

"A which?" Caspian crinkled his forehead in confusion.

"Shut up, Eustace." Edmund rolled his eyes.

"Achoo!" Lucy sneezed.

Then Edmund sneezed too.

Caspian let out another laugh. "Oh, I'm so sorry to have kept you up here in this air in your wet things."

"What's all the noise about?" A mouse wearing a gold band with a red feather came up onto the deck and looked around.

"Reepicheep!" Lucy exclaimed happily.

Then behind him a familiar-faced squirrel came out too.

"Pattertwig!" Lucy clapped her hands for sheer joy, remembering the wonderful travels they had had together during her last trip to Narnia.

"Welcome back, your majesties." They bowed gracefully to her and Edmund.

"Ugh!" Eustace cried. "Take them away! Take them away! I _hate_ performing animals, simply can't stand 'em!"

Reepicheep's paw went to his sword as he looked to Edmund. "Is he under your protection? Because if not-"

Lucy sneezed again.

"Oh hush for now, Reep." Caspian said, grabbing into Lucy and leading her off-deck towards his cabin. "We can deal with this once Queen Lucy has warmed and dried off and gotten a fresh change of clothes."

Reepicheep nodded. "It waits in favor of the honor of a lady then."

Caspian's cabin was small but very comfortable looking. A warm cozy silver-rimmed cot with purple blankets and some soft swan-feather pillows tossed here and there.

What Lucy liked best about it was the golden Lion's head image mounted on the wall. It looked so like Aslan that just looking at it made Lucy feel as though he was in the room with her.

"You can live in here, Queen Lucy." Caspian told her. "Edmund, your cousin, and I will bunk downstairs.

"Are you sure you don't mind?" Lucy asked politely.

"Of course not." Caspian assured her. "I only wish I had something better to offer."

"Nonsense!" Lucy said with a smile. "It's lovely. I feel almost mean taking it from you."

"You aren't taking it, I'm giving it to you as a gift." Caspian reminded her.

"Well it's very kind of you." Lucy told him.

"But there's one little catch." Caspian told her. "I'm afraid you wont have the room to yourself."

"Oh?" Lucy raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"You and the other queen of Narnia will have to share it." Caspian told her

"Other queen?" Lucy asked.

Caspian smiled. "My wife."

"You're married?" Lucy gasped. "How wonderful! To whom?"

"A star's daughter." Caspian said.

"Where is she?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Below deck talking to some of the shipmates." Caspian said. "Oh, Lucy, I am glad you've come! I didn't like her being the only woman on the ship. A man worries, you know."

Lucy nodded understandingly.

"Of course none of the shipmates would try anything, they are all loyal to Narnia and it's leaders but all the same...it didn't seem right." Caspian went on. "But now that you're here, she'll have another lady to talk to."

"How long has it been?" Lucy asked him.

"Since what?"

"Since we left."

"Oh." Caspian thought it over. "About perhaps three years give or take."

"I see." Lucy said quietly. "All is well?"

"You don't think I'd go to sea if it wasn't, do you?" He laughed.

Lucy smiled. "No, I suppose you wouldn't do such a thing."

"How's your sister?" He asked rather suddenly.

"Susan?" Lucy asked. Even though they weren't related, they were still thought of as sisters. "She's fine."

"Is she..." Caspian said not sure how to ask. "I mean...did she...is she...with him?"

Lucy nodded. "She's with him."

"They're happy?" Caspian asked.

"Very." Lucy assured him.

"Good." Caspian smiled, looking comforted. "I'm happy too. Things turned out for the best after all."

"Yes," Lucy said, eyeing a small water drop which fell from the tip of her wet hair down to the wooden floor of the cabin below. "They really did."


	4. Dancing on deck

Lucy had never seen so many shades of blue in her life. Caspian had left the cabin telling her that she could borrow something from one of his wife's trunks to wear. At once she learned something about this queen even though she had yet to meet her; she liked the colour blue. Loved it. Or at least, she didn't appear to be compelled to own any clothing that wasn't blue. There were several different shades of it. A sort of indigo colour, a sky blue, a baby blue, a navy blue, a powder blue, a sea blue, a greenish blue...etc.

All of the gowns were too big for Lucy. Clearly, Caspian's wife was a good deal taller than she was. She finally managed to find one that was only a little too big and could be easily walked in if the extra fabric was tucked into a belt. It was a sea blue (What could be more fitting for the occasion than that?).

Lucy took it out of the trunk and placed it on the cot, spreading it out neatly. Then she peeled off her soaking-wet English summer dress, which was clinging closely to her skin, and rolled it into a wet ball that she dropped on the wooden floor making a slight _splat_ sound. Next she picked up the gown and threw it over her head, pulling it down around herself. She next took a brown-belt she found hanging on one of the walls (It belonged to Caspian but she was sure he wouldn't mind loaning it to her) and folded it around the middle of the gown which she scrunched up so that she wouldn't trip over it when she walked. She tried on the pair of satin slippers that matched the gown she had chosen only to find that they were too tight and pinched her toes terribly. She decided that was quite alright because she didn't really mind going bare-foot on the smooth deck.

After she had dressed, she heard a knock at the cabin door. "May I come in?" The voice was unfamiliar but Lucy knew that it must be Caspian's wife because it was female.

"Yes, I don't think it's locked." Lucy answered.

The door opened and a tall slim girl about a year or so younger than Caspian walked into the room. She was very beautiful with a perfect spotless rose-leaf white completion, starry dark blue eyes, and long golden hair that ended nearly at her lower calves.

"Hello, you must be Queen Lucy from the old stories. I've heard so much about you." She said with a bright blindly-white smile as she stretched out her hand to shake Lucy's.

Lucy shook it and stared at her in awe for a moment. Not even Susan could compete with her, she found herself thinking, she's gorgeous. She wondered what would have happened if Susan hadn't fallen in love with Peter and left Caspian to come back to England. Would Caspian have met this girl and left her? Would he have ended up with two wives like Jacob from the bible? She wondered which one would have been the 'Leah' in that relationship. They were both beautiful and had both won his heart. It probably would've been more like having two 'Rachel's. Of course, none of that mattered now anyway. Things had worked out for the very best, both for him and for Susan. Both were happily married to the person they truly belonged with. There had been a short time when Lucy had worried about them. In short, she was glad Caspian had managed to find someone and learned to love again.

"I hope you don't mind." Lucy said sheepishly, mentioning down at the gown she had borrowed.

"Not at all." Caspian's wife told her cheerfully. "You can borrow anything you need." She glanced down at her feet. "What about shoes?"

"I tried." Lucy told her. "They hurt. It's alright, I'd rather go bare-foot anyway."

"Well, as long as you're comfortable." Caspian's wife answered politely.

"I should go and see how Edmund and Eustace are settling in." Lucy said, walking towards the door.

"I'll come with you." She said, following her. "I haven't met them yet."

"By the way, what is your name?" Lucy wanted to know.

"I haven't got one." The queen blushed at having to admit this.

"You don't have a name?" Lucy asked in a very surprised tone. "Why not?"

"Well, my mother died before she could name me and father-he's a sweet star but not much good with names-just called me 'daughter' and Caspian never calls me anything but pet names and my subjects just call me 'your majesty'." She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't suppose I really need a name anyway."

"What should I call you?" Lucy asked.

"Well you could just call me Ramandu's daughter." She suggested. "I know it's a bit much, but really what other option is there? I'm too old to get a real name now, I wouldn't know to respond to it." She laughed a little at her own joke.

Once they were back on deck, they ran into Edmund and Caspian who stood looking out over the sea talking. Caspian was explaining how long the ship had been at sea and that they were now headed towards the Lone Islands. Then he asked Edmund why they belonged to the crown of Narnia in the first place and Edmund had to confess that he didn't know.

"But if you don't mind my asking," Edmund said to Caspian. "Do explain why you're going to the Lone Islands to begin with. Is it to pay an ordinary visit and then head back to Narnia?" Somehow he got the feeling that it was more important than simple polite stately visits.

"I made a promise to Aslan that I would find the lost men that my uncle sent away so that they wouldn't take my side after he killed my father." Caspian explained. "They were sent in a boat into the east. So we are going to be sailing east and east and possibly..." He lowered his voice. "Even to Aslan's country."

Although he said it softly, Lucy heard him say it anyway and added, "Do you really think Aslan's Country is the sort of place you could ever just _sail_ to?" She couldn't help but think that if you could, everyone would go there just for the sake of seeing it for themselves.

Caspian shrugged. "How should I know, Lucy?" He looked down at her. "You know him better than I do?"

"Don't feel bad." Edmund laughed. "No one knows Aslan like Lucy does."

Lucy smiled at him. "Where is Eustace?" She looked around but didn't see her cousin anywhere.

"Oh, don't bother with him." Edmund rolled his eyes. "He's being a real pain. He's lying in one of the cots in our bunker wailing about how sick he feels."

Lucy's face fell. She remembered getting sea-sick during her first trip out to sea and suddenly felt sorry for Eustace. The poor thing was probably aching to throw up and yet was too dizzy even for that.

"I wish I had my cordial." She said mournfully. "It would've made him feel better and then we could have reasoned with him."

Edmund let out a disagreeable snort.

"I have your cordial in my trunk back in our cabin." Caspian's wife told her. "I thought it might be considered a royal treasure so I took it along. You can have it back if you want."

"I don't think she should waste it on a thing like sea-sickness." Caspian suggested.

"It'll only be a drop." Lucy reminded him. "And imagine how you would feel right now if you were him."

Edmund couldn't help but admire how good and forgiving Lucy was. She could be so sweet that it almost brought tears into his eyes to think about it. She had already forgiven Eustace for how rude he had been simply out of thoughtful pity. Most girls would have held it against him and let him go on feeling ill. But Lucy, rather than do that, went to her cousin-ignoring his rude comments as she place a drop of the magical cordial in her mouth-and made him feel better.

After that, Eustace was left alone in his cot for a while. He sulked and muttered, "No one cares how I'm feeling." Already forgetting Lucy's kindness towards him. He didn't see anyone else until one of the shipmates came down there to look for something.

"You there!" Eustace snapped at him crossly. "Tell me, is the storm getting any better?"

"Storm?" the sailor laughed. "Why it's nothing but perfectly smooth weather out there."

"Lies." Eustace muttered. Then in a normal voice, he added, "Where are my cousins?"

"On deck with everyone else of course!" He told him in a merry tone. "You might consider joining them."

"I don't approve of merry-making during a storm." Eustace insisted stubbornly.

Although Eustace wouldn't believe it simply because he didn't want to, it was nothing but pleasant up on deck. Everyone was singing and laughing and clapping their hands. Someone had a violin which he played while the sailor next to him tapped two spoons together on his lap in time with it to make one playful upbeat little song.

Pattertwig and Reepicheep watched the merry-making with little smiles on their talking rodent faces while they played chess together.

"Come on, Lu." Edmund offered his hand to Lucy. "Dance with me."

Lucy grinned at him. "Alright."

They spun around gaily and speedily mostly instep-except for a few slip ups where they went the wrong way and banged into each other.

On the other side of the deck, Caspian flirted with his wife who teased him and kept moving away laughing, "Can't catch me."

"Oh is that so?" Caspian laughed, walking a little faster and pulling her closer to him.

"Oh, so you caught me." She giggled.

"My shooting star." Caspian sighed affectionately, reaching up to stroke the side of her face.

"My royal hero." She leaned deeply into his embrace and started to kiss him.

A few of the sailors elbowed each other and chuckled. The man with the spoons whispered something to the man with the violin. He nodded, tuned his instrument, and then started to play a soft slow romantic song. It had been intended for Caspian and his wife to dance to but they were too busy making out to bother.

"Dance with me?" Edmund asked Lucy once more, stretching out his hand again.

"Yes." Lucy said softly, placing her hand in his; her cheeks slightly flushed both from the rush of emotions and from the faster dancing before.

They danced together long after the man stopped playing his violin and the sun set and the stars came out hovering above them. They didn't even realize at first that they were completely alone under the glittering night sky.

"Goodnight, Edmund." Lucy said finally, pulling away from him.

He gazed after her as she turned to walk into her cabin. "Goodnight, Lucy."


	5. Watching

Lucy learned to love life on the ship very quickly. There had yet-in spite of Eustace's whimpers that there had so been-to be a storm of any sort and everyday the sky was blue and mostly cloudless. The water was always a beautiful greenish colour and seemed to get clearer and clearer the father they traveled. When the sun was high it could be a bit too warm but the cool sea-breeze usually fixed that within only a couple of hours.

Eustace remained a pain, whining about everything from the weather to the hygiene of the sailors. They smelled like fish and made him want to vomit, he insisted. He didn't like Reepicheep and Pattertwig; they were too fluffy-looking, he told Caspian. It was almost impossible to get the little brat to help out with anything important so they had to rely mostly on Edmund as far as that went.

Actually, Edmund knew more about sailing than Caspian and his crew did because of his fifteen years in Narnia ruling as king under Peter the high king. He had done far more sailing than Caspian, a born Temarine, had ever gotten a chance to do. So he could help them figure out what was wrong with the mast or why the sail wasn't opening properly with ease. He rather enjoyed doing it; reminding himself of old times. He sometimes even told stories of his old sailing journeys but these became very infrequent for a couple of reasons.

The first being that Eustace would blurt out, "You liar! You never did such a thing before. Wait until we get back to Cambridge. I'm going to tell Alberta!" Before Edmund could get out a full sentence. By then, too tired to tell him to shut up, he simply stopped speaking; saving the story for later.

The second was that quite a few of the stories involved Susan and it somehow felt uncanny mentioning her in front of Caspian now after all this time and after all that had happened.

One of Lucy's jobs was feeding the chickens that they kept on the boat for eggs. She sat with them and cooed and sang so sweetly while she fed them that they grew somewhat over-attached to her and would-if allowed-follow her around almost like a flock of sheep following a shepherdess. Lucy didn't mind this most of the time. It was rather nice, she decided, to sit with the little white flightless birds around her like a circle, looking up over then watching Edmund work.

It must be confessed that she got more pleasure out of watching him than even she liked to admit. She didn't care what she was watching him do as long as she had a clear view of it. He could be carrying buckets of water for the deck, cleaning or fixing the rope on the mast, or a million other things and she would sit for hours just gazing over at him.

The sailors, Caspian, and Ramandu's daughter all noticed this but were tactful and decent enough never to say anything about it. Eustace on the other hand was not and thought it would be jolly good fun to tease her about it.

He did so-timing it so that Edmund was in ear-shot and heard him-and Lucy promptly burst into unexplained tears and went back to her cabin to be alone.

"You're a real jerk, you know that?" Edmund said shortly to Eustace, dropping the bucket he'd been carrying so that it came crashing down on Eustace's foot.

"Ow!" Wailed Eustace, hopping up and down crying that no one on the blasted bloody boat could take a joke and that his foot was probably broken now.

"Lucy, open up, it's me." Edmund knocked on the cabin door. He had already tried the handle but the door was locked.

"Go away, Edmund." Lucy's voice sounded strained like she was trying to make it sound like she wasn't crying anymore.

"No, I'm not going anywhere." Edmund insisted. "Just open the door."

"Fine." The door opened and a tear-stained faced Lucy stood there, she quickly wiped her dripping nose on the back of one of her hands and then hid it behind her back, somewhat embarrassed.

"Can I come in?" Edmund asked in such a gentle way that she almost felt better.

She nodded and opened the door a little wider so he could step into the cabin. "Sure." She walked back to the cot and sat down on it.

"Lucy, don't take what he says so much to heart." Edmund said kindly, taking a seat on the cot beside her. "He's a little beast, you know that."

"He didn't need to point out that I was watching you." Lucy said bitterly, feeling her entire face turning an unpleasant shade of crimson.

"Oh it's alright." Edmund laughed a little. "It's not like I hadn't already noticed."

Lucy managed a somewhat weak smile. "You noticed?"

Edmund turned a little red in the face himself now. "Well, in all honestly, I liked the attention."

Lucy's smile widened a little. "So you didn't think it was creepy?"

"No of course not!" Edmund laughed for real now. "If anything it made me work harder and better."

"Why is that?" Lucy asked in a small voice.

"Because there was always the chance that it might impress you." Edmund said sort of shyly, unable to look her in the eye when he said this.

They sat quietly side by side until, at last, Lucy stood up and said, "I guess I'd better get back out there. The chickens don't like to be handled by anyone else now."

Stepping back onto the deck she noticed a very grubby sour-faced Eustace walking by, dragging a dirty looking shovel behind him. He turned and glared at her. "Wait until I tell Alberta that you two beasts took me on a boat ride where your stupid friends made me clean chicken poop."

Lucy put her hand to her mouth and glanced over at one of the sailors standing over towards the port side of the boat next to Caspian and his wife. The Sailor winked at her.

Lucy grinned at him and mouthed, "Thank you."

After that day, because Edmund expected Lucy to be watching him work anyway, whenever they were in ear-shot of each other Lucy used to read aloud from the books of Narnian poetry that Caspian had brought along with him in one of his trunks.

Sometimes Edmund would listen to the rhythm of her voice while she spoke. Never before had he loved the poems so much even though he had heard them many times and knew most of them by heart. He liked the way Lucy read them. Other times though, he would mouth the words of the poem or even finish it for her from memory.

At such times he would stop and smile right at her. She would smile back and usually ask him a question about what he wanted her to read next.

One glorious bright day, she was in the middle of reading her favorite verse when she heard screaming from the front end of the deck (They were towards the back because Edmund was helping one of the sailors fix a slightly cracked railing).

" _When Aslan bares his teeth, winter meets it's death...when he shakes his mane we shall have-_ " Lucy was reading aloud when the cry reached her ears.

"That sounds like Eustace." Edmund said, stopping his work.

"With any luck, the little nightmare's gone and fallen over-board." The Sailor Edmund had been helping muttered bitterly (He was if you are interested in knowing, the same one who winked at Lucy before).

Lucy slammed the book shut and placed it down on her little wooden stool. She saw one of the chickens coming close to it and shooed it away. "Don't touch that, you." She flicked her fingers at the bird which hobbled away looking strangely humbled. Then she got up and followed Edmund and the sailor over to where they had heard Eustace's screaming.

It turned out that Reepicheep had smacked him repeatedly with the flat of his sword because he had grabbed the poor mouse and swung him by the tail just for the sake of what he thought would be 'fun'.

"Eustace, what were you thinking?" Edmund sighed. "Now you've done it."

"Done what?" Eustace bawled, rubbing his arm where Reepicheep had just whacked him again. "This awful thing is _beating_ me. I could order Caspian to have it put down, you know."

"Oh give it a rest." The Sailor laughed. "We all know it must be your fault."

"My fault?" Eustace frowned at him. "I should think not it's-"

Lucy let out a frightened gasp and pulled on one of Edmund's sleeves to get his attention. "Ed, what's that?" She pointed ahead of them where dark dense clouds where approaching the boat.

"Oh no." Edmund gulped.

Suddenly it was as if the heavens had opened up and were pouring buckets of water on them. The winds picked up and started blowing the boat madly this way and that; to and fro.

"Lucy get in your cabin, now!" Edmund told her. "Run!"

"What about you?" Lucy asked before obeying him.

"The sailors might need my help." He told her. "You have to get to safety now."

"But Ed-" Lucy protested as Caspian came seemingly out of nowhere and grabbed onto her, dragging her towards the cabin where he had already left his wife.

"I'll be fine, just go." Edmund promised her.

"Help!" Reepicheep cried almost being thrown over-board. Edmund grabbed him (Pattertwig was already below deck) and placed him in Lucy's arms as if he was a cat.

Reepicheep was not at all pleased by this but had to contend with the fact that he was too small to stay on deck with the others and would soon be washed over-board if he attempted to help.

All the rest of that day and the whole night, Lucy felt the boat moving much faster and more rapidly that it should have. Constantly, she and Ramandu's daughter were thrown to the other side of the cabin by a sudden wind turn.

"I'm scared." Caspian's wife whimpered, clinging to Lucy and Reepicheep who although not frightened didn't pull away because he thought he was being useful in comforting the royal queens.

"Me too." Lucy whispered. It wasn't herself she was truly frightened for though. It was Caspian and Edmund out there on deck and the image of them being washed away into the sea that made her want to scream in panic.


	6. Taken as slaves

In the morning, the storm had ended and the sky was a light cloudless blue once more. The only proof that the raging seas had not been only a bad dream was the mess it had made of the deck and the crew on it.

The first thing Lucy noticed was that the mast was badly damaged and that Edmund would have to show the sailors how to fix it again. Speaking of Edmund, she wondered where he was. She saw Caspian right away because he was staring up at the mast with blood-shot eyes. His wife raced over to him and asked if he was alright.

"I'm fine." He mumbled rubbing his forehead and moaning inwardly.

"Where's Edmund?" Lucy asked anxiously.

"I'm over here, Lucy, with Eustace." Edmund walked passed a few of the sailors and came over to her, Eustace following dourly behind him. The two of them were soaking wet and Eustace kept making whimpering sounds that if a little louder and more like human speech might had resembled the words, "I'm telling Alberta."

"Is everyone alright?" Lucy asked, giving Edmund a quick hug.

"We lost the chickens." Edmund told her rather sadly. "They all got washed over-board."

"Oh." Lucy couldn't help but feel rather disappointed. She'd liked the chickens and would miss feeding them every day. In a strange way they'd been good company for her and she wished that they'd had a happier end.

"I said we should've cooked them but of course no one listens to me." Eustace said, folding his arms across his chest. "Now we don't have any meat or eggs!"

"Oh hush up, you don't eat meat anyway." Edmund told him, turning his attention back to Lucy. "One sailor was almost lost but he managed to grab onto the side of the ship at the last possible minute. He was a little injured and we thought maybe you could use your cordial on him."

Lucy nodded and went back into her cabin to get it. She returned quickly with the small diamond flask. Much to her surprise and dismay she found that the hurt sailor was the same friendly one that had winked at her and had always been so kind towards herself and Edmund. She was fond of him and the thought of him nearly getting thrown over-board frightened her. All the same, she was glad that there was something she could do to help him. She opened the stopper and placed a drop on the poor sailor's wounds. He smiled weakly for a moment and then he leaped up completely healed. She knew he was going to be fine once he winked at her. After this Lucy and Edmund got into the habit of calling him, 'Winks' as a sort of joke. This caught on until no one on board could even remember what his real name had been.

Eustace said that nicknames were complete rubbish and that it was actually demeaning to call a person by one. Especially, he said, one as stupid as 'winks'. But of course they all ignored him as they had learned to do rather well by now; only making him all the more sulky and unmanageable.

Two days later, it was announced that some land was now insight. Lucy gasped and put down the book she had been reading to Edmund. The two looked excitedly at each other for a moment before taking off and racing over to the railing so that they could see the land for themselves.

"Same old Felimath." Lucy sighed, dreamily. She looked over at Edmund. "You remember it don't you?"

"There isn't really much to remember about it." Edmund shrugged his shoulders. "Just a place they kept a lot of sheep in our days."

"I know." Lucy said. "But wasn't it always so beautiful anyway just because it was untouched?"

"Yes, it was." Edmund agreed. "And it is lovely to see it again."

"But is it worth landing there?" One of the sailors wondered aloud. "If there aren't any people anyway."

"I think it would be well worth it just for a little walk." Lucy told them, realizing now that her legs felt sort of cramped up from being on the little ship all that time and never having far to walk. "It is lovely."

"Caspian, can we please go there?" Ramundu's daughter begged. "It does look so nice!"

"Oh do let's!" Lucy added pleadingly.

"Why not?" Caspian shrugged, starting to warm up to the idea. "We could just take a stroll across the island and have the boat pick us up on the other side."

"Sounds like the first decent thing anyone's suggested since this stupid trip started." Eustace huffed.

"Oh, so you're coming are you?" Edmund asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Any place is better than this blasted boat." Eustace said bitterly.

"Blasted?" Reepicheep's paw went to his sword.

"You'll have to ride on Lucy's shoulder so you don't get lost." Caspian said, timing it so that he was surprised with this news just in time to distract him from starting a duel.

"But-" He started to protest.

"We can't risk losing you and having the whole crew searching an island full of sheep for you wasting good time, can we?" Caspian said in a reasonable tone.

Reepicheep sighed and gave in.

The boat came to a stop on the sandy shore of Falimath; Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, Caspian, Reepicheep, Pattertwig (Who rode on Edmund's shoulder the way Reepicheep had to ride on Lucy's), and Ramandu's daughter came ashore. Everyone else stayed on board to help navigate the boat to the other side of the island.

A little ways in, sitting on the first grassy spots on the beach, were some unpleasant looking large-boned men. They looked at the new comers with greedy expressions.

Caspian told the others not to tell the men who they were just in case they were not as loyal to the Narnian crown as they should have been.

"Oh, must we speak to them at all?" Ramandu's daughter blurted out in an almost fearful tone. "I don't much like the looks of them."

Caspian gently patted her right hand. "I'm sure everything will be fine. We have to ask somebody what's changed around here. There's certainly more than sheep now."

"It isn't nice to judge by appearances." Eustace said snottily.

"You're right about that." Edmund said with a fake grin. "Because if someone judged you by appearances they'd think you were a sour, unpleasant, demanding little-know-it-all. Oh wait. you are!"

Lucy giggled into the palm of her hand.

"You over there!" the men called to them. "Come and drink with us, friends."

"Should we?" Edmund asked Caspian.

"It wouldn't be polite to refuse." Caspian said.

"Come sit with us." The leader of the men said to them as they got closer. The man to the left of him poured some wine into a glass and beamed up at them.

No sooner had their bottoms touched the ground than they were grabbed by the men and forced back up with their hands behind their back. Reepicheep and Pattertwig were both yanked away from Lucy and Edmund and thrown into over-sized bird cages.

"What in the world?" Edmund gasped, struggling-and failing-to break free of the strong grip of the man holding him back.

"Don't fight now, the easier you make it on us, the easier we'll make it on you." The leader said. "by the way, my name's Pug."

"So that's what you are!" Exclaimed Caspian, figuring it out at last. "You're a slave trader. I hope you are able to sleep at night!"

"Now, now, what did I say?" Pug's tone was surprisingly calm and as smooth as oil.

"You will keep from touching my wife like that, Sir." Caspian hissed at the man who had grabbed Ramandu's daughter-he was being a little too free with his hands.

"Now that you're slaves, no one is anyone's wife unless whomever buys you says so." Pug told him.

Caspian spat in his face, only resulting in getting a blow to his own from Pug's fist.

Ramandu's daughter started crying and Lucy felt hot tears spring up into her own eyes making the faces of the slave traders turn into one big blur.

"You two," Ordered Pug rather harshly. "Do stop carrying on like that. Don't cause no fuss and you wont have anything to cry about, see?"

"Where are you going to take us?" Lucy asked sheepishly, half-biting her lower lip while she spoke, trying to keep the tears back because she could see how red Caspian's face was from Pug's fist and didn't want to get hit herself.

"Just to a little place where we keep our stock until market day tomorrow." Pug said coolly. "Now, let's get a move on." To one of his men he added, "Be careful with them animals, they'll fetch the best price of all I'll bet."

"Let me out of here!" Reepicheep started gnawing furiously at the bars on the cage he was being carried in. "Let me out and fight me, if you dare!"

"Bless my soul!" gasped Pug. "It can talk!"

"He, knight of Narnia, not _it_!" Reepicheep shouted.

"Blimey, it's like a show!" One of the men exclaimed. "Do go on, little mouse, this is most amusing!"

"Can't we all be friends?" Pattertwig chimed in rather obviously. "We could all collect nuts together and sell those and-"

"Shut up!" Reepicheep barked at him.

"I'm trying to make friends." He protested.

"You're making it worse!"

"I'm going to tell Alberta you led me right into a gang of slavers." Eustace said meanly to Edmund and Lucy.

"It's not our fault; you could have stayed on the boat." Edmund reminded him.

But Eustace refused to take in that fact and went on and on about it until even Pug was annoyed and threatened to beat him if he said another word.

They were led up a grassy slope passed where there was a nice-or at the very least, decent looking-manor made of grayish stone. Leaning out of one of windows was a pretty middle-aged woman who looked down at them with pity.

"Husband," she called behind her. "Pug has gotten another bunch of helpless souls to sell."

"Awful!" her husband's voice returned. The man peered out of his wife's window, looked down at Caspian, blinked, and rubbed his eyes then blinked again. "Wait up, Pug!"

Pug stopped mid step and made everyone else stop too.

Perhaps he means to free us, Lucy dared to hope, maybe he's a good man and will do something with Pug and let us go back to our ship where it's good and safe and-

Before she could think anymore the man-whom they could now see was clearly a noble of some kind-was already standing in front of them. He looked at them mournfully and then at Caspian again with a bemused expression.

"How much for that boy there?" He asked, pointing at Caspian.

Lucy felt her heart break with disappointment. He wasn't going to save them at all, he was only going to try to buy Caspian and take him away from them! Oh, they might never see him again!

"I knew your lordship would pick the best." Pug said in a suck-up tone of voice.

"I don't wish to converse with a man like you, now out with it, how much for that boy there?" He pointed to Caspian again.

"For you, four hundred but for anyone else..." Pug droned on.

"I'm not paying you more than two hundred, Pug." The man said flatly.

"Fine then." Pug sighed. "Give me the two hundred and he's yours."

"No, please!" Ramandu's daughter cried out tearfully, in spite of Pug's warnings. "Don't take my husband away from me!"

The noble man looked stricken. He couldn't separate a husband and a wife, it was just wrong. More than wrong, it was sick and twisted and hurtful. "I'll take the pretty lady as well, Pug." he decided at last. "I'll give you a hundred for her."

"She would bring me more money at market day." Pug told him, looking rather lustfully over at her. "She's stunning."

"Four hundred then." The man said quickly, frightened of what might happen to her if she was sold to someone with less than honorable intentions.

Lucy felt a little better. This man was clearly good-hearted. He was willing to clean out his purse so that the husband and wife weren't taken away from each other. It was so moving that for a moment she forgot to be afraid.

"Very well, untie the lady and her husband." Pug told his men.

They untied them and took them over to the man who looked sorrowfully at Edmund, Eustace, and Lucy. "I am sorry that I cannot buy you all." He shot Pug a stern glare. "Treat them well as long as they are in your care or it will go badly with you."

"I'll treat 'em like my own children." Pug promised him.

"Somehow that doesn't give me much reassurance." The man sighed grimly.

"I'm sure it will all turn out alright in the end." Ramandu's daughter whispered to Lucy, daring to give her a quick hug goodbye. In a lower voice she whispered, "Aslan has shielded your family from worse before, never forget that."

"I wont." Lucy whispered back, watching Caspian and his wife follow the man up into his house.

That night Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace were forced to sleep in a cell-like hay-filled room with some other slaves who were sadly and fearfully awaiting market day.

Looking over at Lucy, who now that she was no longer under Pug's watchful controlling eyes was starting to cry again, Edmund crawled over to her and laid down beside her. "Lucy, we'll be alright."

"I'm scared." Lucy whispered.

Edmund put his arms around her and pulled her closer. "It's alright, I wont let them take you, I wont. I promise."

"What are you going to do?" Lucy asked softly.

"I don't know but I wont let them lay a finger on you." Edmund told her as she rested her head on the side of his chest.

"You couldn't stop them before." Eustace commented dryly.

"Shut up." Edmund hissed, gently rubbing the side of one of Lucy's arms to comfort her.


	7. The Slave Market

Strange as it might sound, when Lucy first woke up she felt happy, absolutely, completely, and deliriously happy. The small trickles of sunlight that reached into the cell felt wonderfully warm on her closed eyelids and she could feel comforting arms wrapped around her-which she knew belonged to Edmund. She felt so comfortable and content that she didn't even want to open her eyes or move.

All of a sudden, as quickly as the rush of joy had come, it faded away leaving only a horrible feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach as the memories of what had happened to them yesterday flooded back into her mind like a raging wind storm. She remembered everything now. They weren't on the ship anymore; they'd landed on Falimath and had been kidnapped to be sold as slaves Yes, she was being held now but it might be the last time. She might get taken away to anywhere! With anyone! She didn't dare cry though because surely Pug would be nasty and cross if she was puffy and red-rimmed around the eyes while he was trying to make a profit off of her. She gulped and bit her lip so hard that she tasted a drop of blood. It was painful and she quickly loosened her teeth's grip on the skin.

"Slaves, wake up!" Pug called to them as he entered the room. "Market day today."

"I don't think this is legal." Eustace yawned, ill tempered from sneezing all night due to allergies from the piles of hay.

"You don't start any jaw now." Pug rolled his eyes. "I haven't the time to deal with all that."

Once more they were all tied and bound and led away given the strictest orders not to make any trouble or else.

Lucy couldn't help constantly looking over her shoulder at Edmund and Eustace who were being led behind her. She was pretty much desperate to do something-anything-that would keep her with them. What if they weren't all brought by the same person? If only Aslan were here! He could come roaring in and scare the pants off of Pug and save them all. No one would try to take them then. Perhaps somehow, where ever he was, he understood that they needed him and maybe just maybe he would come in time. This was her only hope and she clung to it as tightly as she possibly could.

The market was not at all nice. It smelled of B.O. and fish meat that had gone bad. It was sort of hot and Lucy could feel the beads of sweat rolling down her neck and into the collar of her dress. She wasn't sure if it was because of the heat or out of sheer terror and stopped trying to guess. It might have been both.

They were all yanked up onto a large stage set up so that people could see them and decide if biding was worth anything. Pug looked very excited; he must have expected them to sell well and fill his purse with money. He licked his lips probably thinking of the grand meal he would have at the end of the at once of the nicest inns in the area.

The first few people he sold, were not anyone that Edmund, Lucy, or Eustace knew personally but they felt very sorry for them all the same.

Even Eustace, spiteful nasty Eustace, thought it was jolly rotten the way the people where shoved about like cattle. It was the first time he had ever felt sorry for someone besides himself. Edmund noticed the look on Eustace's face and was surprised; fairly certain that he himself had worn a similar expression when the White Witch had turned a fox to stone right in front of him. He wondered if it was possible that Eustace was changing-or could change later on-for the better.

Reepicheep and Pattertwig were both brought up in their cages and shown to the crowd. Both were sold to a tall pouty man who said they were very amusing creatures and he could use a laugh now and again.

"I'd believe that." One of the slaves yet to be sold whispered casually to another.

Pug couldn't stop grinning as he counted up the money he'd just made. "Splendid! Splendid!" He kept saying to himself over and over again. He motioned for Edmund to be brought to the front. "Ah, now here we have a nice young boy. Clearly good for work or company. Decent looking fellow. Not a bad tooth in his head. Let's start the bidding at two hundred. Do I hear two hundred?"

"Two hundred." a man in the crowd called out.

"Do I hear two hundred and fifty?" Pug called out. "Two hundred going once, going twice-"

"Two hundred and fifty!" Someone else shouted.

"Do I hear three hundred?" Pug asked. "Going once, going twice, going three times, Sold!"

Lucy felt all the blood drain from her face. Every bone in her body seemed to be screaming, "No!" They couldn't just take him away. Not like this. She couldn't just loose him this way. Someone couldn't just _buy_ the just king whom she cared so deeply for. The kind boy who'd done so much for her all her life. The one who'd believed her about Aslan. The one who'd stalled long enough for her to rescue Peter from the gallows. The one who'd built her a swing in Eustace's back yard. The one who'd kissed her back in Cair Paravel that last time. The one who'd loaned her his beloved electric torch and hadn't even been mad at her when she'd forgotten it. She couldn't stand seeing Pug untie him about to hand him over to a complete stranger.

Just as Pug was about to hand him over to his new owner, he noticed the gold ring on his finger. "What's this?"

"It's mine." Edmund said, yanking his hand away.

Pug grabbed his hand again. "I don't think so." He forced Edmund's hand open (It had been clenched like a fist before) and pulled the ring right off.

"Give it back." Edmund demanded.

"A very fine piece of gold." Pug whistled contently. "What's this writing on the side?"

"I said, give it back!" Edmund insisted, unable to re-claim it because he wasn't completely untied yet.

"It's mine now." Pug told him briskly.

"You've got it." Edmund shrugged his shoulders. "But it's not yours and it never will be."

"Is this your name on the side?" Pug wanted to know. "Or did you steal it off of someone else?"

"Hey, Pug, stop jawing at my boy, I didn't pay good money for you waste bidding time talking to him. Let's see the other lots!" The person who'd brought Edmund shouted up at him.

Lucy looked down into the crowd where Edmund was standing beside his owner. She finally tore her eyes away from him and looked at Pug who had slipped the gold ring into his pocket and was prepared to continue with the selling. _You can show up at anytime_ _now, Aslan._

Eustace was brought up and no one appeared very thrilled. They waited to see if Pug would change their minds by anything he could say. Pug looked hard at Eustace then cleared his throat a few dozen times before saying, "A young boy, good for um...some kind of work...probably...maybe? Um sort of sulky but er...um...useful for driving away annoying...uh...sales people from your...um...doorway?" He started to stammer. "I think he can clean outhouses alright, maybe."

No one seemed impressed.

"Shall we start the bidding at..." Pug looked down at the blank faces in the crowd. " _Free_?"

No one said a word. You could have heard a pin drop. They looked up at Pug and blinked as if to say, "Are you kidding us?"

"Well what if _he_ pays _you_?" Pug tried.

"Hey!" Eustace looked very insulted.

No one wanted him.

"You win some you lose some." Pug laughed nervously before quickly adding, "I mean, I hope you enjoyed my little joke...har har...hee hee...Now for the real slave up for sale next.." He snapped his fingers signaling for Lucy to be brought up.

"She's pretty." Edmund heard one of the men in the crowd say. "I might actually like to bid on her."

I swear, if he comes within a foot of her, I'll beat the snot out of him, Edmund thought, his heart beating so fast he thought he might have a stroke if he was a very little bit older.

"A lovely young gel." (Gel was how Pug sometimes pronounced 'girl') Pug announced. "Pretty, sweet, delicate and lady-like. Let's start the bidding at four hundred."

"Four hundred!" A tall man wearing a sun-hat cried out.

"Five hundred!" A slightly shorter man with a walking stick shouted.

"Do I hear six hundred?" Pug asked.

Edmund thought he was going to be sick. He remembered his promise to Lucy from the night before. He had to do something, he just had to! But what? He wished that Peter was there to help him. Peter was like a mother bear when it came to Lucy; he would have known what to do. Edmund only hoped he could think of something before it was too late.

"Six hundred!" Someone shouted.

Edmund turned around to see who it was. A tall rich-looking man with a short beard well dressed for market day.

When no one offered a higher bid, Pug cried, "Sold!"

Lucy looked at Edmund and mouthed, "He didn't come." _Aslan didn't come._

At that moment, looking up into her frightened face, Edmund felt the weight of the whole world crashing down on his shoulders. He couldn't stop thinking about how badly Lucy needed him right now.

As soon as she was brought down to her buyer, Edmund rushed away from his owner ignoring the cries of, "Stop him!" and "What is he doing?" and grabbed onto Lucy's wrist, fully prepared to run as fast as he could and take her as far away from this dreadful place as possible. He would have to come back for Eustace later but seeing as no one wanted to buy him, he should be just fine.

"Ed, what are you doing?" Lucy exclaimed. "They're not going to let you-"

"I promised you I wouldn't let anyone take you and I intend to keep that promise." Edmund said, pulling her through the crowd trying to get away from both Lucy's owner and his owner who were chasing them.

Lucy's owner managed to jump in front of them and tried to pull Edmund away from her. He wouldn't have succeeded if only Edmund's owner hadn't caught up and grabbed him by the waist. Lucy's owner then grabbed onto Lucy's waist and started to drag her away.

"Lucy!" Edmund screamed at the top of his lungs trying to get close enough to grab her again.

"Edmund!" Lucy started crying before her owner's sweaty hand was shoved over her mouth.

Edmund's owner stayed behind to bid on more lots but the man who'd brought Lucy was apparently not interested in staying on any longer and took her away from the market.

"No." Edmund whispered, tears starting to roll down his face as he caught one last glimpse of poor Lucy being dragged off in the distance. " _No_."


	8. The Storm of freedom

Pug, completely oblivious to the tussle in the crowd, ignored the screaming and shouted down that he had another man up for sale. This poor fellow was rather elderly.

"Good for looking over well behaved little children or animals, slightly prone to falling asleep while doing so." Pug announced. "Shall we start the biding at twenty? Do I hear twenty?"

Suddenly an arrow rushed right passed Pugs head and hit the center of the stage behind him. There was a note tied to it. "What's this?" He bent down to unfold and read the note which said, " _The slave traffic is now illegal in the Lone Islands, please comply by releasing all captives at once; or we will use force_." Pug gasped, choked on his own spit, and turned very white in the face. "What? Who wrote this? Is this some kind of joke?"

"No, I assure you it is not." A gorgeous golden-haired young woman followed by some strong-looking guards pushed her way through the crowd. She wore a sparkling crowd of diamonds and rubies on her head and there was a quiver of arrows hanging from a strap loosely tied around one of her shoulders. In her left hand, she held a bow.

Edmund recognized her at once. It was none other than Ramandu's daughter; Caspian's wife. She didn't appear as he had last seen her, frightened and tearful, but now she appeared strong and almost warrior-like. He couldn't help but be reminded of his older sister, Susan-the way she had been during the earlier years of the golden age they'd ruled in.

"Why, I know you!" Gasped Pug. "I sold you yesterday. Where is your master, slave? Why are you dressed like that? Did you steal those clothes? Bad slave!"

"Uncover before the queen of Narnia you dog!" One of the guards hollered at him, pointing to the hat he was wearing on his head.

"Queen of Narnia?" Pug couldn't believe his ears.

"Yes," A strong familiar voice with a strong Temarine accent said firmly, walking over and standing by her side.

It was Caspian himself. He also dressed up royally in dark crimson and purple colours. He too wore a crown on his head but of gold and silver rather than of gem stones.

"Why, you're-" Pug thought he might faint. Why were the slaves he'd sold yesterday coming back here telling him he couldn't sell any more slaves? This didn't make any sense.

"Pug, the man you sold me to was none other than the Lord Bern. A good man who brought me because he was reminded of my father whom he was very loyal to. He is also one of the lost lords I set out on my journeys to find." Caspian explained. "As soon as possible I went to see the governor of these islands to talk about this horrible human trafficking. He was a pompous twit no good for anything, so I removed him from office and have now given these islands a duke-namely, the Lord Bern-in his place. And the said Duke has now on my orders passed a law which makes you a criminal. This all happened a couple of hours ago meaning all the slaves in this market are now free!"

Happy cheers erupted from the slaves. Both the ones who had been sold and the ones about to be sold clapped and jumped for joy.

"What about our money?" One of the buyers demanded.

"Pug," Caspian said coolly. "Please give the nice gentleman back his money. Better yet, double it for wasting his time."

"What?" Tears sprang up into Pug's small greedy eyes. "But then everyone here will want double money too."

"Then give it to them." Caspian shrugged.

"But I'll become poor, a beggar!" Pug protested in loud childish wails.

"And that's not my problem." Caspian answered sternly, unmoved. "It's still not as bad as being a slave. Beggars, at least, are free men."

"Give me my money, Pug!" Someone else shouted. "My slave already stomped on my foot and ran off now that he's free. Also, pay for me to get this injury checked, I think it's broken! This is all your fault!"

"Yeah!" A few more buyers agreed.

"Let me out of this thing!" Reepicheep shouted at the person who'd brought him, slamming his paws on the bars.

"You weren't all that funny anyway." The man sighed, opening his cage and Pattertwig's cage at the same time and letting them lose.

"Now where are our friends?" Caspian's wife demanded, lining up another arrow on her bow threatening to shoot Pug if he didn't tell her.

"The nice young gentleman and the pretty gel?" He said cheerfully, not noticing that Edmund was still in the crowd and thinking he might get to keep the money from them after all. "They were sold at once, I'm afraid it's too late to-"

"I'm here, Caspian!" Edmund shouted, shoving his former owner away and rushing over to him. Then he looked up at Pug and wiggled his fingers. "You, hand it over."

"Hand what over?" Pug asked.

"My ring, give it back." Edmund said.

"What ring?" Pug said in a cheeky tone. "I don't have any ring."

Caspian snapped his fingers and the guards grabbed Pug. They lifted him upside down and shook him until a gold ring fell out of his pocket and landed on the stage below with a slight clink.

Edmund raised an eyebrow at him and bent down to grab it and place it back on his finger.

"Oh _that_ ring." Pug turned red and fake-laughed. "Why didn't you say so?"

"Caspian give me a sword." Edmund said shortly.

Caspian pulled out a silver-hinted smooth bladed jewel-encrusted sword and handed it over to Edmund. "Here, will this work?"

"It'll do just fine." Edmund told him. "Thank you." He reached and put the sword to Pug's neck. "Tell me, the man who brought Lucy, do you know him?"

"Um, no?" Pug tried.

Edmund glared at him and dug in a little with the sword. "Don't lie to me! Who is he?"

"I don't know." Pug lie-sobbed.

"I will slice your head clean off right now if you don't tell me." Edmund threatened him.

"You wouldn't do that, boy. You're a good lad." Pug said shakily.

"I would so." Edmund hissed, his eyes flaming with more anger than anyone had ever seen in him before. "I've lost her and it's your fault. Tell me where I can find her and I'll spare your stupid, worthless, life. Otherwise you are going to be one dead pirate."

"Alright." Pug gave in. "Lower the sword a little, I can't think with that blade so close to my neck."

Edmund lowered it barely a half inch. "Well?"

"I don't know the man's name but I have sold slaves to him a few times before. He lives at a place on this island called Cobblestone Manor." Pug told him.

"Good, where is it?" Edmund waved the sword upwards when Pug hesitated for a moment.

"Take two left turns down the market road go up two main roads take another left then a right." Pug blurted out nervously. "It's the big stone building on the big green hill, can't miss it."

"Very good." He handed the sword back to Caspian. "Thanks for the loan."

"My pleasure." Caspian glared at Pug and then shook his head in disgust.

"Hey, what about me?" Eustace wailed, still tied up; one of the few unsold slaves that hadn't been released yet.

"Somebody untie sulky." Pug shouted to his men. He looked back at Edmund. "Between you and me, I'm glad you're taking _him_ off my hands. Never saw such a drug on the market place. Worse slave ever!"

"I'm telling Alberta!" Eustace sobbed as soon as his hands were untied from behind his back.

"We don't have time for that now, Eustace." Edmund said curtly. "We have go find Lucy."

"And you!" Eustace pointed at Caspian accusingly. "Been off having fun while we all-"

"Oh shut up." Edmund told him. "If it wasn't for him handling matters we'd all have been slaves, maybe for ever."

"Not me." Eustace reminded him.

"I hardly think that's a good thing." Caspian chuckled. He turned around. "Hey, where did King Edmund get off to?"

Edmund was already running as fast as he could towards Cobblestone Manor. He felt a stitch in his right side but he kept running anyway. He couldn't stop thinking about poor Lucy frightened, not knowing that they were all free now. And who knew what that strange man might do to her? Who knew if he could be trusted?

Meanwhile, Lucy was indeed feeling very afraid as the man pulled her into the large house. She had resisted all the way up the hill but he paid her no heed and continued to pull her.

"Please let me go." Lucy pleaded with him.

"No, I paid good money for you." The man said shortly.

"You're hurting me!" Lucy protested, motioning with her chin toward the red burns forming on her wrist from him twisting her arm too roughly.

"It wouldn't hurt so much if you stopped pulling." The man told her.

"And what? Let you take me?" Lucy asked incredulously. "Never! I am not your slave-in spite of what you may think-and you will unhand me this very moment, you pig, or-"

The man reached down and smacked her hard across the face.

Lucy whimpered and looked down at her feet reaching up with her one free hand to rub her flaming cheek.

From behind the man came a sudden low grow. Lucy didn't bother to look up.

The man felt confused though and turned his head just slightly to see what the source of the noise was. "Oh. My. God." The man gulped and cringed.

Standing behind him, was the largest Lion he had ever seen in his life. He had a full-grown flowing red-gold mane and a huge golden body. His teeth were bared and he looked furious.

"Hello there, please don't eat me. There's a nice angry beast..." The man said weakly looking more terrified every second.

Lucy looked up to see who the man was talking to. She screamed out in delight the second she saw him for herself. "Aslan! Aslan! Make him let me go!"

The Lion let out a roar so loud that the startled man had to let go of Lucy to put his hands to his ears. Lucy then rushed away from him and threw her arms around Aslan's neck, burying her face in his warm delightfully protective mane.

The man took a step towards the Lion in one final attempt to grab onto his slave girl again in hopes of dragging her into the house with him. Aslan lifted one paw and swatted him out of the way. The Man banged up against the doorway of his house which was still open. He crashed into something and said, "Ow!"

"Oh, Aslan!" Lucy exclaimed, letting go of him to look into his beautiful flawless golden face and plant a gentle kiss of gratitude on his soft velvet-silk nose. "You did come after all."

"Did you doubt, dear one?" Aslan asked gently, licking her forehead.

"Only a little, Aslan." Lucy told him. "But I still believed in you. Really, I did."

"I know you did, sweetheart." Aslan said as she started to stroke his mane again. "And I knew you needed me."

"How?" Lucy wanted to know.

"I have my ways, Lucy." Aslan reminded her. "I've always known when you needed me the most, haven't I?"

"I've missed you." Lucy told him in a small whisper.

"I've missed you too." Aslan's golden lips curled up into a reassuring smile.

"What do I do now?" Lucy asked him.

"The others are free now." Aslan told her. "You go with them and keep sailing."

"Is it true that we will reach your country in the end?" Lucy asked, looking away from him for a split second. He didn't answer her so she looked back to where he had been. He was gone. Funny, she hadn't heard him leave. But then again, his paws were such soft pads that you barely heard him at all until he wanted you to. She wished he'd remembered to say goodbye to her but wasn't too upset knowing they might very well see each other again soon. She was quite convinced of this; certain that if there was going to be a long time inbetween his visits, he would have said a proper farewell.

She looked anxiously back at the doorway of the man's house. What if he came out again and tried to grab her? Dark rain clouds suddenly gathered over-head and she heard a clap of thunder. At once, she started running as fast as she could down the hill.

At first, only a few drops fell down, landing randomly on the tip of her nose or on her neck. Then more and more fell until the rain was so thick she could hardly see anything through it. She stumbled a little as the hill became suddenly very muddy and slippery.

"Lucy!" She heard someone cry out. "Lucy!"

She knew that voice. "Edmund?"

A figure was standing at the bottom of the hill getting completely drenched in the rain squinting up, trying to see if it was really her or not.

"Ed!" Lucy cried down to him again.

"Lu?" He screamed over the noise of another loud burst of thunder.

Lucy ran towards him, slipped again and started rolling down the hill faster and faster. Suddenly she came to a stop. Edmund had caught her. Unfortunately falling into a small mud puddle while doing so.

"What are you doing here?" Lucy laughed as soon as she caught her breath.

"Thanks be to the Lion." Edmund reached up and moved a lock of her wet hair away from her face and then gently stroked one side of it. "You're alright."

"Did you come to rescue me?" Lucy asked.

"Maybe." Edmund laughed, pulling her into a tight embrace.

"Is everyone really free now?" Lucy asked eagerly.

"Yes, but look at you!" Edmund laughed again. "What are you doing all wet and muddy?"

"You don't look any better." Lucy laugh-reminded him.

"No I mean, how did you escape?" Edmund laughed harder now.

"He came." Lucy said in a joy-filled whisper.

Edmund didn't need to ask what 'he' she meant. He knew just from the look on her face. "He saved you?"

"Yes." Lucy said breathlessly.

"Did the man hurt you?" Edmund asked anxiously, his laughter ceasing for a moment.

"Not too badly." Lucy said weakly. "He did slap me once and my arm still kind of hurts from being dragged up the hill but-"

"I'll kill him if I ever see his rat face again." Edmund said bitterly, tears coming into his eyes.

"Hey," Lucy reached up and grabbed his face with both her hands. "It's alright, really. I'm alright."

As soon as she let go of his face he leaned in and kissed her. She started to kiss him back but then pulled away and sneezed.

"I think we'd better save this for later and get you out of this storm before you catch anything." Edmund decided, climbing out of the puddle and helping her to her feet.

"Alright, where to?" Lucy asked as he slipped his arm around her shoulders and started to lead her away from the hill.

"Lord Bern's house." Edmund said as Lucy glanced down at his hand, pleased to see he had gotten his ring back. "I'll explain who he is later."


	9. Eustace is missing, Lucy meets a dragon

The next few days were positively heavenly for Lucy. She was taken shopping for new things because, as Ramandu's daughter pointed out, it was silly for her to have to keep on borrowing what clearly didn't fit her properly. She got sea-boots, jerkins, delightfully warm hand muffs, cloaks, jerkins, dresses, and scarves; so many that they had to stack them up high on one corner of the cabin she and Caspian's wife shared.

"Are you sure you don't mind the clutter?" Lucy asked Ramandu's daughter uncertainly.

"Of course I don't mind!" She exclaimed kindly. "I'm so glad to see you having some of your own things as a queen should. I've been feeling just awful seeing you trip over the loans I could spare."

"I'm glad to be going back out to sea." Lucy told her, struggling to reach a tie-up lace in the back of the new dress she had put on. "I didn't think I would be so eager but now leg cramps don't seem so bad."

Caspian's wife nodded, understanding what Lucy meant. "At least we got out alright and the lord-duke now-Bern and his wife were kind to us." She leaned forward and helped Lucy tie the back of the collar on her dress.

"In a way I'm glad we came." Lucy said thoughtfully. "Otherwise, who knows how long the slave trade could have gone on for. But oh, I was so scared."

"I can imagine." Ramandu's daughter said with a shudder. "You must have thought you would be with that horrible man who brought you for ever."

"No, I wouldn't have stayed." Lucy said, smoothing out the wrinkles forming at the bottom of the dress. "I would have run away-or at least tried to-first chance I got."

"You're brave." Caspian's wife commented.

"You think so?" Lucy asked sort of quietly.

"Yes." She nodded slowly. "I really do."

"Thank you." Lucy said, gently throwing the matching cloak over her shoulders.

"I don't want to go back on that ship and sail around aimlessly." Eustace's sulky voice carried down into the cabin. "It's a rotten little tub and-"

"I don't want to hear it." Edmund told him shortly, pulling him back onto the deck.

"I want to go home to Cambridge." Eustace pouted and glared at him.

"What you want is a good punch in the mouth." Edmund muttered as he helped tie knots in a piece of rope for something one of the sailors needed.

"I hope he suddenly goes mute." Caspian said to Edmund as walked passed him, carrying an extra water-barrel onto the poop deck. "I don't know how much longer I can take this."

"You and me both." Edmund agreed with a short huff and an exasperated groan.

"Edmund, what do you think?" Lucy came out of the cabin and spun around.

Edmund smiled. She looked beautiful in her new clothes. Of course, to him at least, she looked beautiful in just about anything. Even mud and cold rain water. He couldn't help but grin every time he thought about his relief when she called his name down the hill through the rainstorm. He wondered if that was anything like what Peter had felt when Susan had come running towards him at the subway station. All loneliness and fear melting away, a happy, warm, gushy, reassuringly safe, feeling taking it's place.

"Ed?" He had forgotten to answer her.

"You look nice." He said finally.

Eustace rolled his eyes. "You look awful. That dress is too fancy for a little girl to wear. Alberta always says that girls should be dressed neatly and plainly or else they'll be spoiled little princesses when they grow up."

"She's not that little anymore." Edmund reminded him. "And she's a queen, she should be allowed to dress how she likes."

"Queen indeed." Eustace snorted. "I still don't believe a word of it."

"He's going to be like this all day, Edmund." Lucy sighed, grabbing onto his arm to lead him to the other side of the boat. "Let's leave him alone for now."

"Nasty stuck up brats." Eustace practically spat after them.

"It takes one to know one." Edmund called over his shoulder.

"Is everyone on board?" Caspian asked one of the sailors.

"Yes, your majesty." The sailor nodded.

"Onward then." Caspian signaled for the sail to be raised and then started to wave to the good-sized crowd that had gathered to see the King's boat sailing away.

Sometime passed and most of it was rather enjoyable. They were quiet, sunny, breezy days during which the air was never too hot nor too cool. Lucy spent most of her time playing chess against Reepicheep and Pattertwig. Occasionally, she played against Edmund if he wasn't busy but on most days she that to be content with reading aloud to him while he did his work. She helped him when she could but that wasn't as often as she would have liked. Eustace was the only one who was bad-tempered on these days. He sulked and pouted and cried and whined more then ever before.

A while after those days ended, they were caught up in really nasty stormy weather during which no one could stand anyone else. Everything another body did irritated someone. Even Edmund and Lucy fought a little with each other on these days. Most of the matters were quite petty but with the weather being so irksome and the water supplies starting to run a bit low, no one was willing to give in and admit anyone besides themselves were in the right.

Eustace did nothing but say that if they'd listened to him and had stopped sailing east they wouldn't be in this mess. Caspian told him to shut up.

Finally, when they thought they couldn't stand one more minute on the boat, which even Caspian himself was starting to hate a just a little, land came in sight.

"Extra water rations tonight." Caspian told them in a wearily but cheerful tone.

"Eustace shouldn't get extra, he drinks some of Lucy's all the time." Edmund said as they lined up at the barrels.

"It's alright, Ed." Lucy said. "I told him it was fine with me. Girls don't get as thirsty as boys sometimes do."

"I don't believe that's true." Edmund mused.

"Either way, it's fine." Lucy shrugged good naturedly.

"When do we get off the boat?" Eustace demanded.

"Tomorrow." Caspian said, looking at the setting sun in the distance. "It's too dark now."

"I'm not afraid of the dark." Eustace snorted, tossing his head back condescendingly. "You're all a bunch of babies."

"I say we let him go ashore now and get eaten by wild beasts or kidnapped by savages and see who he calls a baby after that." Winks sneered, taking a good swig of the water from his canteen as he spoke.

"Let's just do what Caspian says." Lucy said in a very queenly voice. "It is his ship and his voyage."

"It's also his fault then that we-" Eustace started before Edmund told him to hush up and just wait for morning to come like the rest of them.

In the morning they got off the boat and took off their boots to squash the cool sand between their toes.

"Ah." Lucy sighed as her feet sank deep into the muddy beach.

"It is wonderful." Edmund agreed, rubbing the side of his left food against the sandy ground.

"Now we should get to work on seeing what's to be done here." Caspian announced. "We have to fix some things on the Dawn Treader before she will be sea-worthy again. And of course, get some extra water from a good stream here, someone must be sent to find one as soon as possible. We sure have our work cut out for us."

Work? Thought Eustace, who was lying uselessly in the shade of a palm tree looking up at the clear beautiful sky; longing to do nothing else but nap and here it seemed that there wasn't going to be any time to rest at all. He didn't want to work. He didn't like it. He hadn't wanted to go on this stupid trip in the first place. He wanted to get as far away from the others as he could. They were all horrible beasts of people. He couldn't stand any of them. The more he thought about it, the more upset he became until at last, he decided he would walk off and explore until they were done working. That way, they wouldn't be able to force him to join in.

"They wont make a slave out of me!" Eustace muttered to himself as he marched away from the shoreline and off towards a row of comfortable-looking green hills.

Hours later, after they had finished working and had had some supper and had gotten fresh water to drink, Lucy looked around her and noticed that someone was missing.

"Where's Eustace?" She asked.

"I haven't see him." Edmund told her. "Not since this morning."

"Oh dear." Lucy looked very concerned. "Ramandu's daughter?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, dear. Haven't seen him."

"Winks? Caspian?" Edmund checked.

They both shook their heads.

"Well has anyone seen him in the last couple of hours?" Edmund asked the sailors.

"Nope."

"This is not good." Edmund groaned.

"What about before that?" Lucy wanted to know. "Did anyone see him perhaps around noon?"

"Nope."

"I have a really bad feeling about this, Ed." Lucy said, starting to feel very anxious.

"It's alright, he can't have gotten far." Edmund decided. "I mean, this is Eustace after all. He isn't very good at traveling."

"But he is good at getting what he wants when he wants it." Lucy reminded him.

"Why on earth would he want to sneak away from us like that?" Edmund huffed.

"I don't know." Lucy sagged her shoulders sadly.

They started heading towards the hills.

"Eustace!" Caspian called, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Eustace!"

"Eustace, where are you?" Edmund called.

"Aren't you hungry?" Lucy tired.

"Eustace!" Ramandu's daughter tried calling for him as well.

"It's no use." Lucy sighed down-heartedly. "If he was anywhere nearby he would have heard us by now."

"It's getting really dark." Ramandu's daughter said gloomily. "If we keep looking, one of us is bound to get lost too, sooner or later."

"She's right." Edmund said, taking Lucy's hand and leading her back to the shoreline where they'd set up camp. "We'll have to call it off for tonight."

Lucy looked back at the dark shape of the hills behind her with tears in her eyes. "Alright." She said in a low, choked-up voice.

"Cheer up." Caspian tried to reassure her. "I'm sure we'll find him tomorrow."

Lucy nodded but she didn't speak. A lump formed in her throat and she kept trying to make it go away by swallowing. He may have been a pain but he was her cousin all the same and she worried about-even missed-him.

That night, after everyone had fallen asleep, Lucy still laid awake. She'd closed her eyes but sleep never came to her. She opened them again decided to get up and walk. Edmund's arm was around her waist, she lifted it gently so as not to wake him, and stood up slowly. She wasn't going to go far.

Walking along the beach, she heard a sudden sharp cry of pain and fear. The sound was coming from behind her.

"Who's there?" She spun around and saw, much to her great surprise and horror, a huge beast; a dragon standing with his giant bat-like wings spread out widely on both of his sides.

At first she was very afraid but then she saw tears streaming down its face in the pale moonlight. She didn't run, this threw her so off guard that running never came to her mind. Somehow she knew he wasn't going to try to eat her. The dragon whimpered and lifted up one of his front legs. She saw it had a large golden bracelet stuck to it, sinking deeply into the flesh.

"Oh, you're hurt!" She realized.

The dragon shook his head up and down as if to nod yes.

"Can you understand me?"

Another nod.

"I'll be right back." She promised, running back to the camp to fetch her magic cordial.


	10. A dragon called Eustace

Racing back towards the camp, Lucy stopped just a little ways off to catch her breath so that she wasn't panting and stumbling when she reached the tented area, thus possibly waking everyone up when they were so tired from the long day of work and then that exhausting search for Eustace.

If she had been more practical-like Susan-she might have thought twice about doing this and have strongly considered waking someone up and telling them about the dragon. However, she had always been a little braver and wilder than most little girls, more curious, more trusting, and more sure of her self in some ways. She wasn't as afraid as she ought to have been. Rather, she felt that she knew that dragon from somewhere; that he was something of an old friend, one that she had somehow forgotten and was being called on to remember now.

Caspian, Reepicheep, Pattertwig, and the sailors snored softly and comfortably, not noticing at all that she had been gone. Edmund was still asleep as well but he didn't appear as relaxed as the others. In his sleep, he moaned and moved his arm towards the empty spot where Lucy had been sleeping before, as if trying subconsciously to figure out why she wasn't there.

For a moment, she stood looking down at him adoringly, feeling strangely moved by this before she remembered what she had come for. The cordial. The hurt dragon needed it. She crept over the sleeping bodies and pulled the small diamond flask from it's place.

Edmund let out another moan and looked very much as though he was about to wake up. Then he rolled over and she could tell he was still somewhat deep in slumber.

Next, as she headed back towards the beach, Lucy made sure that she quickly twisted off the stopper so that she could give it to the hurt creature as soon as she reached him.

The dragon hadn't moved. He'd stayed put, waiting for her. She could have sworn she saw an expression of relief on his face when she came into sight; as though he half-expected her to leave him. This poor dragon even looked as though he thought she might have reason to do so. A few more giant tears were rolling down his ugly scale-covered face.

"It's alright." Lucy said softly, lifting up the bottle to show him. "This will help you."

His greenish-gray lips turned up almost in what might have been called a smile. She got the feeling that if he could speak, he would be saying, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She said, pouring a drop on his leg. "I don't know if it will do anything about that gold bracelet, I've never seen it make metal vanish, but at the very least it should help with the swelling."

The dragon nodded.

Lucy turned out to be right. The gold bracelet stayed as stuck as ever but the hurt bubbling skin around it seemed to look less painful. Apparently, it felt that way too because the dragon stopped cringing every three seconds, as Lucy had just now realized he had been doing.

"Poor thing." Lucy said gently, noticing he was still crying. "I do wish you could talk and tell me why you're so sad."

The dragon took a step closer to her but not threateningly and Lucy knew at once that it was companionship the poor thing wanted, not a meal. She was more than willing to be friends with him, even if he was so terribly ugly. It wasn't his fault he was a dragon. No one had ever asked him if he would rather be something nicer-looking when he was born. Looking up into his eyes, Lucy suddenly felt a shock running through her whole body, up and down. She knew him now. She knew why he was so familiar and so piteous and even why she felt the urge to comfort him.

"Eustace?" She whispered in amazement, reaching up to touch the front of his greenish snout.

He nodded rapidly, thumping his tail up and down with excitement. She recognized him! He had been so frightened that no one would've been able too. Oh, sweet dear cousin Lucy! How horrible he felt that he had been so unkind to her in the past.

"Eustace." This time there was laughter in her voice. She threw her arms around his nose-which he lowered down to her level-and sighed happily. "I was so worried about you!" Next she leaned in and planted a kiss on the nose she had just embraced. "At least you're in one piece." Even though it was a terribly big piece.

His smile widened and more tears-these though clearly of joy-streamed down his face.

"You must have been so frightened." Lucy sighed, looking back towards the camp.

He nodded again.

"Does it still hurt?" She pointed to where she'd poured the cordial.

He shook his head.

"Good." She smiled, looking content.

Back at the camp, Edmund suddenly woke up and realized that Lucy wasn't there beside him. He quickly looked around to see if she had gone of to try to cuddle with Pattertwig who unlike Reepicheep didn't take offence when she tried to do that. She wasn't there.

"Caspian, wake up." Edmund shook his shoulder. "Lucy's missing."

"Yes, King Edmund, whatever you say." Caspian slurred briefly before falling back asleep.

Edmund tried to wake up Winks and a couple of other sailors but they just mumbled something about potato peelings and didn't bother to so much as open their eyes.

"Your Majesty?" Reepicheep wasn't a deep sleeper and all of Edmund's fuss to wake the others had awoken him. "What's wrong?"

"Queen Lucy's missing." Edmund told him.

"Then we have to find her." Reepicheep said bravely, grabbing his sword and looking up at him eagerly. "Where shall we search first?"

"Maybe she's gone down to the beach for a walk." Edmund tried hard to think in Lucy's frame of mind in order to guess where she might have wandered off to.

"Let's go see if she's there then." Reepicheep started rushing down towards the sandy shore.

Edmund followed just behind the speedily little mouse for a little while until he saw something that made them both stop dead in their tracks. There in the dim red-yellow lighting, he saw Lucy standing next to a large dragon as calmly as if she was standing beside Peter or one of her parents. She didn't seen at all nervous and she seemed to be talking to the great creature who apparently could not answer her but seemed to be listening closely all the same. For a moment, Edmund suspected the light of the rising sun must have been playing tricks on his eyes. Then he realized that Reepicheep must have been seeing it too because his eyes were wide and his fluffy little mouth hung open.

"No, don't you dare attempt a single combat with it." Edmund hissed at Reepicheep before cupping his hands around his mouth and calling out, "Lucy, what are you doing?"

"Ed, look who's here!" Lucy shouted back. "Come on down, it's alright, he wont hurt you."

Do I know that dragon? Edmund thought, feeling quite puzzled as he came closer and closer to the large greenish creature. "Hullo."

The dragon let out what was intended to be a friendly snort.

"What was that awful sound he just made?" Edmund shuddered.

"He's trying to say hello." Lucy explained. "Don't you recognize him yet, Edmund?"

"No." Edmund admitted flatly.

Lucy sighed, grabbed onto his arm, and pulled him right in front of the dragon. "Look closely."

The dragon bent down so that Edmund could look directly into his great round pond-like eyes. At first he thought he still didn't know him but then something about the strange-almost human-expression on his face, gave him away.

He glanced back at Lucy. "He wasn't always a dragon, was he?"

Lucy smiled. "No, he wasn't."

"He was someone human." Edmund realized, looking now at the bracelet on his arm. "I say, Lu!" He pointed to the dangling charm hanging off of it. A little gold hammer and a diamond above it like a star. "It looks like something a Termarine lord might wear, is he-"

Lucy quickly shook her head. "It's Eustace."

"Eustace?" Edmund echoed.

Lucy nodded and smiled again.

"Thank goodness we found you!" Edmund exclaimed, looking back at him. "But what happened?"

"He can't speak, he's a dragon." Lucy reminded him.

"I never did meet a talking dragon." Edmund recalled.

"The poor thing." Lucy said. "I wish we could so something for him."

Reepicheep, who had over-heard all of this, told them not to worry because he himself had heard many stories of human's enchanted into this horrible thing or that scary creature but they almost always changed back somehow at the end.

The dragon-Eustace-must have been comforted by that statement because now he looked at Reepicheep with more respect and awe than he had ever willingly paid him before.

A few days passed and it became apparent that Eustace was becoming a much nicer person. He even allowed Edmund and Lucy to sit on his back so he could fly them over the island a couple of times. And they all grew much more fond of him but they had one little problem, when they set sail again, how could they take him with them? And then, what would he eat? Just when finding a solution seemed the most hopeless, a miracle happened.

Edmund woke up because he thought he heard footsteps near the campsite. He knew it wasn't Lucy wandering off because she was still asleep right next to him. He gently removed his arm from her waist and kissed her on the cheek before getting up, taking a spare sword in one hand and walking towards the sound of the footsteps.

"Who's there?" He called into the darkness.

"Don't you know me?" a familiar voice said.

"Eustace?" Edmund gasped. "Is that you?"

"Yes."

"You're a human again."

"I know."

"What happened?" Edmund took a step closer to him.

"Come away from the camp, we don't want to wake anyone up." Eustace told him.

"Alright." Edmund agreed, following him a little ways away. They sat down on a grassy bank just north of the main beach. "Now tell me, what's happened?"

Eustace smiled distantly. "I think I met Lucy's talking Lion."


	11. Dark Waters

Eustace had indeed met Aslan. He told Edmund that somehow or other, the Lion had changed him back into a boy and then dressed him in brand new clothing.

"They're the ones I've got on now." He explained, motioning down at the greenish-gray tunic and tights he was wearing. They were dragonish colours but on the new Eustace, this nicer not-so-dragon-like boy, they looked rather nice.

"I see." Was all Edmund said.

"I am very sorry, Edmund." Eustace's voice was low now, nearly a whisper. "I didn't realize I was being so horrid."

Edmund sighed and put his hand on Eustace's shoulder. "Don't feel too bad."

"But I was horrible." He reminded him. "All of the mean things I said...and about that wonderful Lion too!"

"You haven't been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia." Edmund told him, taking a deep breath.

"What do you mean?" Eustace looked up at him in confusion. "You've always been the good one."

"No." Edmund sighed, removing his hand and looking down at it dejectedly. "I haven't. Not like you think."

"What happened?" Eustace looked concerned.

"You were an ass, Eustace, it's true." Edmund admitted with a half-joking sort of smile. "But you don't know what I was. I never told you, why would I have?"

"Told me what?" Eustace asked, not certain that he was going to like the answer.

"I was a traitor, Eustace." Edmund said shortly and gravely.

Eustace felt like a cold breath of wind had just smacked him in the face. "Don't tell me about it then, okay?"

"You don't want to know?" Edmund hid his relief.

Eustace shook his head and smiled weakly.

"Say, whatever happened to that gold bracelet?" Edmund asked, by way of changing the subject.

Eustace laughed. It was a very different sort of laugh than Edmund had ever heard him use before. "Here it is." He took it out of his tunic pocket and handed it to him.

"Well it must be a relief to have it off." Edmund said, his fingers playing with the little gold hammer dangling off the bottom of it. "I guess this might have belonged to one of the lost Lords Caspian's looking for." He started to hand it back to Eustace who pushed it back towards him.

"You keep it."

"But I don't want it." Edmund told him.

"You think I do?" Eustace laughed. "After what just happened? How do I know if it wasn't the bracelet that changed me in the first place?"

"What should we do with it then?" Edmund wondered aloud.

"We could burry it." Eustace suggested.

"That could work." Edmund agreed, standing up and heading back towards the camp.

Everyone was glad to see Eustace looking like himself again (not to mention over-joyed that they didn't have to bring a full-sized dragon with them on the rest of their voyage).

"Welcome back." Caspian had said, giving him a friendly hug.

"Thank you, Lucy." Eustace said as soon as he was free from Caspian's grip. "I'll never forget what you did for me."

"It was nothing." Lucy said modestly. "You would have done the same for me."

"I wish." Eustace muttered before bending down and kissing her on the cheek.

"What was that for?" Lucy asked, a surprised smile forming on her face.

"You kissed me when I was a dragon and you worried about me when I was an ass." Eustace said softly, looking at her with more compassion than he ever had shown before.

"You _are_ my cousin." Lucy reminded him.

"Yeah." Eustace stretched out his hand. "Friends?"

Lucy beamed at him and shook his hand firmly. "Friends."

"It is wonderful to see you looking like yourself again." Ramandu's daughter commented in a polite low voice, placing a hand on one of Eustace's shoulders.

"You see?" Reepicheep said, coming over now that he saw Eustace was a human boy again. "I told you everything would turn out alright."

Eustace was about to bend down and hug the adorable little rodent when Lucy quickly whispered to him that he shouldn't do so. It would have offended the little creature greatly, doing more harm than good. So he nodded thankfully at him instead. Then he bent down on one knee so that he and the mouse were eye-to-eye and said a very formal thank you to him.

They named the island 'Dragon Island' (What more fitting name could they have given it?) and got back on board the dawn treader. Sailing on for a while, things where going well. Occasionally, Eustace-who now really tried very hard to be agreeable-would have a relapse which would put nearly everyone into a fowl mood, but for the most part things really were 'going well' there wasn't much else that could be said for it.

They found a few smaller not very important islands that are not really worth a mention and sailed on for a while longer until they came to the first large island they had seen in a quite a while.

"I'm glad we've come somewhere at last, I was starting to worry about our water-supplies again." Caspian confessed, breathing a sigh of deep relief as the boat came to a surprisingly gentle stop on the sandy-shore.

"It will be nice to get off of this blas-" Eustace stopped and shook his head, remembering he was a changed boy now. "Never mind."

"He is trying." Lucy reminded Edmund, who's left eye was starting to twitch a bit.

"I know," Edmund whispered back to her. "That's why I can't smack him."

Something in his tone cued Lucy in to the fact that he was joking and she reacted with a faint giggle.

The island was rich in soil and the vines grew thickly over dozens and dozens of untouched gray boulders. The sand-line stopped barely a foot or so inwards leading around to rose-coloured cliffs; making it seem more like a tropic jungle than a simple island off the coast of nowhere.

Most of the crew had stayed behind on the boat but Caspian, Winks, Edmund, Eustace, Lucy, and Ramandu's daughter were all in favor of exploring and saw all of this wonder for themselves.

Lucy thought she saw-for a split-second-a little monkey peering at her through the leaves of one of the large trees that formed the cool green canopy above them.

Of course it wouldn't be a _talking_ monkey, she reminded herself when it vanished into a thicket as soon as it realized it had been spotted.

"I have to say this is rather nice." Eustace said, being good-natured now that he wasn't being rocked on wooden decks day and night. "You wouldn't expect it to be so cool and breezy in a place like this but it is."

"It's only early morning." Caspian reminded him. "And we are under a canopy. It may get a bit worse later on."

"I suppose." Eustace agreed. "But is nice now."

Lucy looked up and noticed a place in the dark green shadows above them where tiny pink rose-buds were sporting almost unnaturally fast and then blooming and falling to the ground like showers of petals.

"It's so beautiful." Lucy said in a tone of awe-struck wonder.

Edmund glanced over at her. Her round cheeks flushed pink like the roses that fell all around her and a smile of pure delight was on her face; he wondered how anyone in their world could have thought her plain, calling his sister the beautiful one. Lucy was so lovely at moments like this, when she smiled unexpectedly for sheer pleasure. He wondered if she knew how deep his admiration of her went and at times thought quite sadly that she did not. For how could he tell her? What words could really explain it? None that he had ever learned. It would take a whole new language with words of perfectly pure meanings just to begin to explain.

"Yes," Edmund finally managed to stammer. "Beautiful."

Winks choked back a laugh and elbowed Eustace who mouthed, "I know." raising his eyebrows as if to say, "Isn't it funny?"

They walked on until they reached the end of the canopy and found themselves in a muggy fog and almost unholy heat. They stopped trying to wipe the sweat off of their foreheads and struggled to ignore the sting it gave their eyes when the beads of it hit their pupils.

"Oh, look!" Caspian's wife cried out happily. "A body of water!"

"At last!" Eustace practically bawled. "Anything to get out of this heat!"

"A swim would be nice." Lucy agreed hoarsely, her throat sort of dry.

Edmund nodded in agreement. "How near to it are we?" He called over to Caspian.

"Only a few feet. Look, we're coming near it now." He announced happily.

They were all prepared to dive in clothes on and everything when Lucy blurted out, "I say, what's that thing?" And pointed to something in the center of the water pool.

The others all looked to see what she was talking about. There among the coral-coloured bottom, was something that looked like a large gold statue of a nobleman.

"Oh!" Caspian gasped. "Gold, I think."

"Can we get it out?" Eustace wondered aloud.

"It'll be too heavy if it's real gold." Winks decided.

"Couldn't we dive for it?" Ramandu's daughter wanted to know. "I mean if a bunch of us were to lift it at once..."

"Might be too deep." Edmund said, reaching for a the hunting spear he'd brought along with him as a sort of walking-stick. "I'll test it." Carefully, he dipped it into the water.

"I don't think it's gold after all, Ed." Lucy told him, coming a little closer, pointing to the spear in the water. "Your spear is the same colour now; it must be the lighting."

Suddenly Edmund grunted and dropped the spear into the water making a slight splash, a few drops from which landed on one of his boots and on the side of Lucy's dress.

"King Edmund, why did you drop it?" Caspian asked.

"It got so heavy I-" He looked down at his boots and then over at the place where the water had hit Lucy's dress. "Oh dear Aslan! Get back all of you! Don't go any closer to the water."

"Why not?" Eustace nearly whined.

"Look!" He lifted the side of Lucy's dress to show them. "It's gold. The water it-"

"Turns things into gold; real gold!" Winks exclaimed.

"The king who owned this island would be the richest man to ever live." Caspian realized, looking for a frightening moment that made Lucy want to shiver and vomit, not unlike his uncle Miraz.

"I think we should go." She said quickly.

No one paid any attention to her now.

"No one is to breathe a word of this on threat of their life." Caspian ordered.

"Hey, who are you bossing?" Edmund demanded. "I'm not your subject. You are king under the former high king, Peter. And I used to rule with him in the golden age."

"So it's come to that, has it?" Caspian said rather nastily.

"Oh hush." Edmund blurted out absent-mindedly.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Caspian hissed at him.

"I'm allowed to do what I want." Edmund insisted rather childishly.

Caspian's hand went to the hilt of his sword. Edmund's hand went to his own sword.

Eustace, Winks, and Ramandu's daughter stood there, doing nothing to calm either of the angry kings down, much to Lucy's deep annoyance. She watched in complete disgust as a full-blown sword fight almost resulted.

"Ooh!" Lucy finally exploded, stamping her foot. "Stop it, both of you! That's the worst of doing anything with boys! You're all a bunch of no-good, sword-swinging, idiots! I'm going back to the boat; if you ask me, this should be called, 'death water island' and neither of you greedy beasts should have it." with that she tossed her head and walked back through the canopy with her head held high.

"Lucy, wait!" Edmund said, realizing how horrible he must have seemed to her. He put his sword back in its place and went after her.

She didn't slow down. She kept walking firm and determinedly.

"Lucy, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me." Edmund said breathlessly, struggling to keep up with her.

"I don't like what I saw, Ed." Lucy said, looking-much to Edmund's dismay-like she had been betrayed. "I didn't know you were like that. I thought you were different."

"I am, I mean, look here-" Edmund stammered. trying and failing to say the right thing.

"Forget it." Lucy turned around and started walking away again.

"Please, Lucy." Edmund raced ahead and jumped in front of her. "I don't care about the gold, it was stupid of me."

"Maybe I just don't believe you." Lucy whispered, tears starting to form in her eyes.

"I'm not perfect, Lu." Edmund told her. "I made a mistake. Please, try to understand."

"You aren't like that?" Lucy whispered weakly.

"You know I'm not." Edmund said, reaching for her hands.

She didn't pull away. "I do, it's just-"

"Look at me, it's alright." Edmund whispered, pulling her closer. "I agree with you, let's call it 'death water' and whomever wants it can have it."

Lucy felt flushed and bewildered all of a sudden. "There's something wrong with this place."

"Tell me about it." Edmund agreed, pulling her closer still.

"Ed?" Lucy realized he was looking at her sort of funny.

"Oh my." He breathed slowly, letting a deep realization that he might have known all along put itself into words at last. "Lucy, I love you."


	12. Keep it up?

"W-w-what?" Lucy stammered, certain that she must have heard him wrong.

"I love you." Edmund repeated, laughing a little as he spoke. "I don't know why I'm choosing to say this now of all times..." His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "...but it's the honest truth."

Lucy felt a smile come onto her face. She secretly had hoped he loved her or at least liked her a lot. Of course you didn't normally kiss people you if you didn't have some feelings towards them but to actually hear him say it was wonderful. She knew he wasn't perfect; just a moment ago her feelings towards him had bordered on hate after how he had acted but she knew she wasn't perfect either.

"I love you too, Ed." She said when she finally was able to speak clearly again.

Edmund opened his mouth and was about to say something when they heard a voice calling their names.

"Edmund! Lucy! Where are you?" Sure enough Caspian appeared a few moments later and apologized for his behavior. He and Edmund shook hands and both said, "Sorry." and answered, "That's quite alright."

Soon they had all set sail on the Dawn Treader again. A few muggy days out in the open sea passed by; Lucy and Edmund barely took notice of them because they were too busy keeping each other company and telling Eustace to shut up whenever he teased them about it. Winks complained once or twice but not badly-he was too cheerful in nature for that. Then came the morning when the sun rose a little higher than normal; almost like it was an afternoon though that time of day hadn't yet come (Eustace suggested that they'd reached a different time-zone perhaps and a few others agreed with him although most decided to keep the mystery alive by simply shrugging and saying, "Maybe, or maybe not.")

"What does this island look like to you, Lu?" Edmund asked her, leaning over the side of the boat to get a better look.

A few neat rows of sand, nothing out of the ordinary. After what had happened at death water island though, she was glad to see a simple-not so magical looking-place.

"Just an island." Lucy said truthfully.

"I'm glad we've come to it all the same." Eustace told them, stretching his right arm. "I'll be nice to be on land again for a few days."

"It isn't as if you get sea sick anymore." Lucy pointed out.

Eustace shrugged. "That doesn't mean I like being rocked back and forth all the time."

"Well it seems like as good a place as any." Caspian said, noticing his wife looked like she wanted to get off the boat as well.

"Alright, so shall it be the same as last time?" Winks asked Caspian. "You and your wife, Queen Lucy and King Edmund, Eustace and myself going ashore while the others stay behind?"

"It sounds like a plan." Caspian told him.

And so they stepped onto the shore and started walking inland to see if there was anything worth their attention. Much to their great surprise, only a little ways off from the shore, stood great perfectly-cut green lawns and fountains like the sort you might see in any expensive manor in England.

"Now this is more like it!" Eustace exclaimed, letting a little of his old self shine through. "A real place at last."

They quickly found that they were walking not on sand nor dirt but on nice pathways made of cobblestone bricks.

"It's so still." Lucy commented, looking around, feeling for a moment almost as if she was back in England some how and had to remind herself that she hadn't returned to that world just yet.

"I like it here so far, if only it were a little less eerie." Ramandu's daughter said.

"It is as if there is some great mystery hanging over this place." Winks agreed, walking a little ways ahead.

Suddenly, Lucy lurched and stumbled on the path. She was a little behind the others so no one-not even Edmund-noticed. She felt a sharp pain at her heel. It wasn't her ankle and she didn't feel any swelling, it took only a few moments for her to figure out it was a small round pebble stuck in her shoe. Quietly, without disturbing anyone-she didn't want to make anyone wait for her when she just could catch up with them later-she dropped to the ground under a tall shady tree and took off the shoe to remove the pebble.

She had just gotten it out and was about to put it back on and go after the others when she heard a strange thumping that seemed to be coming from close by. She looked in all directions but she didn't see anything.

"We can't let them get back to the boat." She heard a voice say.

"That's right chief, we can't let 'em go. Keep it up chief, keep it up." Some other voices chimed in.

What in the world is going on? Lucy wondered, pushing her back closer to the tree, slightly afraid that whomever was speaking might see her before she was able to so much as catch a glimpse of them.

"We'll go down to the shoreline and get in the way so they can't go." The first voice said again.

"You said it, chief, you're so smart! Keep it up, keep it up." The agreeing voices said.

Lucy threw on her shoe the wrong way but didn't stop to fix it, rather she ran as quickly as she could, ignoring the irritation of the flap against the side of her foot. "Edmund! Caspian!"

Edmund heard her calling and turned around to face her. "What's up, Lu?" He noticed the frightened expression on her face. "Are you alright?"

"Yes-no I mean, I'm not sure." She blurted out shaking her head, eager to tell them what she had just over-heard. Finally she managed to get out the entire story about the strange voices that were going to keep them blocked from getting back to the Dawn Treader.

Ramandu's daughter seemed as if she might burst into tears. "Oh, Caspian, what are we going to do?"

"It mightn't be all that bad." Caspian tried to comfort her. "Maybe they just want to speak to us."

"They probably do mean to battle with us, sire." Winks sighed. "We needn't deny what might very well be the truth."

"Still, Caspian may be right after all." Edmund defended him, turning back to Lucy he added, "Are you sure you don't know what these creatures are?"

"I couldn't see them." Lucy told him.

"Then they must not have been very close." Eustace decided.

"Oh no, that's just it." Lucy explained, her eyes widening. "It seemed like they were on the other side of the tree. Very close by."

"Any yet you didn't notice anyone actually being there?" Eustace asked in disbelief. "Are you sure you didn't just _think_ you heard all of this?"

Edmund put up his hand and shook his head. "Don't go there, Eustace. She's been right so many times before and she never lies. We owe it to her to take her word for it."

Lucy felt her cheeks flush at the gentle way he defended her.

"But what are we going to do?" Ramandu's daughter asked. "We can't just stay here, can we?"

"There is only one thing to do." Caspian said, sighing deeply. "You and Queen Lucy will have to take bows and arrows, Winks, myself, Eustace, and Edmund will all draw our swords. We can only hope for the best."

They crept as discreetly as possible down towards the shoreline in a protective sphere format; as carefully as if they were going into a real battle field. The only thing was, there didn't seem to be anyone else there besides themselves. In fact, here they were almost to the ship and nothing had tried to stop them. Then, Caspian banged into something small and solid but unseen, he took a step back and cringed.

"That's it, now." A voice said. "Don't go any father there's a whole lot of us and we've all got weapons."

"Hear him, hear him!" Some cheery voices added. "That's our chief that is. Very smart! Couldn't have put it better ourselves. We've got weapons. So nice, so simple, so direct! Keep it up, Chief. Keep it up!"

Edmund wasn't sure if he wanted to smack these invisible creatures or run from them. Neither seemed possible at the moment.

"What do you want with us?" Caspian asked.

"We want the little girl." The chief voice told him.

"What little girl?" Ramandu's daughter blurted out.

"The littlest maiden of your group of course." The chief said, in a tone that suggested he thought they might not be very intelligent.

"My cousin is a _queen_." Eustace scoffed at the voices rather angrily. "Little girl, indeed!"

Lucy turned to Eustace and smiled briefly. Her cousin had certainly been improved from being in the Narnian world.

"What's a queen?" Some of the voices echoed in confusion. "We've never heard of anything like a queen. What's that?"

Both Edmund and Eustace tried to explain but the voices didn't seem to understand. At last they gave up listening all together and said, "You can't put things they way our chief does, give it time, lads, give it time. A bit of schooling here and there and you'll get better at explaining things. Ask our chief, he knows. Keep it up, keep it up."

"Well you can't have Lucy, so forget about it." Eustace said firmly.

"If you don't hand over the little girl, we'll have to cut all of your throats." The chief voice said grimly. "Strictly a matter of business, of course. No offence I hope."

Edmund pointed his sword the closest he could guess as to where the chief might be standing. "You wont take her; unless it's over our dead bodies."

"Oh no, you don't understand." the chief sighed. "We'd kill her if she didn't come willingly. Do be a good sport and loan her to us, we need her help. We wont take her for ever."

"What do you need me to do?" Lucy stepped forward, lowering her bow. "Maybe I _can_ help."

"Stay out of this, Lu." Edmund said sharply.

"No, don't you see?" Lucy shook her head sadly. "If I don't agree to help them with whatever they need, they'll kill us all, I don't want to be killed either."

"Ah there's a smart girl!" The chief said as proudly as if he was her own father.

"If it's anything against her honor or safety-" Edmund started before Lucy put her hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"It's alright, Ed." She said softly.

"Now then, if you're going to be helpful to us, we'll tell you our tale of woe." The chief announced.

"Go ahead, we're listening." Lucy said bravely.


	13. A far too agreeable supper

"Come and have supper with us." The chief voice said in such a hospitable tone that it was hard to believe just moments earlier he had been threatening to cut their throats. "And we'll tell you all about the help we need then."

"Keep it up, chief, supper-when one's hungry, one wants food. Keep it up, keep it up." The other voices chimed in agreeably.

Edmund started to protest but Lucy stopped him with a sharp whisper of, "Ed, I don't think they're going to do anything to us. I mean, don't you see?"

"See what?" Edmund asked in confusion.

She made her voice as low as possible just in case one of the creatures the voices belonged to was listening to her, "They don't seem very... _intelligent_?"

"Oh." Edmund understood. They were all huff and puff and more than willing to do something foolish like kill someone who hadn't done them any harm because they felt they needed to, but they wouldn't be devious. They were far too stupid for that.

"We'll eat with you." Lucy told them. "But where?"

"Come with us, down the main lawns." The chief explained. "There's a great stone manor there."

"Aye, a stone manor. What a simple and direct way to explain it! Keep it up!" the voices agreed more enthusiastically than ever.

Winks cringed and whispered to Caspian, "I can see how this could get old fast."

Caspian nodded and rolled his eyes. "Tell me about it."

The manor-much like most of the island-did not look like it belonged in the Narnian world at all. It looked like a proper large, well-kept, home in England. There was a thin line of ivy growing on one of the side walls but other than that all of the bricks were neat and unmarked by any blemish at all. The front doors were large and dark; made of thick cherry-wood, it opened rather easily for the voices but not without a shake; which Edmund quickly realized was not from the door itself but from the creature opening it. These invisible voices must have had unseen bodies that required them to bounce a lot.

"Like giant frogs or else grasshoppers." Eustace whispered quickly to Edmund.

Edmund shook his head and motioned over at Lucy. "Not another word about grasshoppers, Eustace. Lucy's being really brave now but she's not too keen on insects, especially big ones. Don't put those kind of ideas into her head, alright?"

"Oh, sorry." Eustace apologized.

"It's alright." Edmund whispered back as they all walked into the front parlor of the manor. It had a deep blood-red carpet and a large staircase on one side which went up to the second floor.

The creatures took them to the other side, where there was a comfortable-yet strangely formal-appearing dinning room. There was a long sleek shinny table with plenty of big chairs, more than enough room for everyone to have a seat.

"Sit down and we'll get you some supper and tell you all about our troubles." The chief voice said.

"Keep it up, chief, keep it up."

"If they say, 'keep it up' one more time, I'm going to-" Ramandu's daughter hissed, clenching her right fist a little too tightly.

"Soothing words, sweetheart, soothing words." Caspian whispered, trying to calm her down.

"I'm fine, really." Ramandu's daughter forced a smile that was more like a grimace.

"Ah, here we are!"

"By Jove!" Eustace exclaimed. "Look at that!"

He had good reason to be amused; platters of food were coming towards them seeming to be floating in the air. Not level with the ground but going up and down like pogo sticks (Resulting in a bit of a mess with anything that was runny, like soup or stew or pudding). When the food finally reached them it fell down neatly as if served by invisible hands.

Lucy was the only one who remembered to say, "Thank you very much." To her server although she couldn't see him or her.

"Now, then let us tell you why we needed the little girl." The chief voice said, sounding like he was settling down.

"No agreements this time?" Winks laugh-whispered to Ramandu's daughter who let out a mild chuckle.

"See now, this house here does not belong to us." The chief voice started. "It belongs to a great man-not an ordinary man-a man who used to be a star in the heavens!"

He said it with such fear that Ramandu's daughter couldn't help saying, "I know stars."

"Aye, but not like him." The chief voice said in a quivery tone. "He's _powerful_."

"I see." Edmund said dryly, still feeling a bit sore with these strange beings-whatever they were.

"Now then, he wanted us to do something cuz we're his servants but we didn't do it." The chief voice went on.

"Why not?" Caspian asked him.

A short laugh followed. "We didn't want to! That's why not."

"Well said, chief. No one puts it like you do! Keep it up, keep it up."

"Was it something very bad?" Lucy asked them gently.

"No, it was fine." The chief voice assured her. "We just didn't want to do it."

"But if you're so frightened of the star, might it not have been better of you to just do as he says?" Ramandu's daughter pointed out.

"Oh she doesn't understand!" the other voices laughed. "She can't put things like our chief. Keep it up, chief, go on."

"Well so what does he do to punish us?" The chief voice sounded greatly offended and annoyed now. "He makes us ugly. All hideous and unappealing like. So we said, 'see here sir, we want to be nice looking again, what you did was cruel, cruel! We wont stand for it!' and he said 'tough luck' to us and went on about his daily business with no worries about us poor ugly things."

Lucy was the only one who didn't long to hit the creatures over the head with a flying pan. Not because she didn't find them annoying but only because she had often longed for beauty herself. She wasn't ugly, but she would've hated to become so. She still remembered the cloak she had used during her last visit to Narnia (not without a red flush of embarrassment though).

The chief voice prattled on and on about how good-looking they used to be until Caspian begged them to please get to the point.

"Well, we decided to do something about it and I sent my little daughter, so pretty before she was turned ugly, she was! Aye! I sent her up to the second floor; that's where he-that wicked star-keeps his special books. One book, is more special than all the rest. It's in the center of that book room and it's magical. It's what he used to turn us all bad-looking to begin with. But my little sweetie couldn't find a way to make us not ugly anymore. So she panicked and turned us all invisible. We all liked it well enough for a while, really, we did! But now, we think we'd rather not be invisible anymore."

Edmund rolled his eyes. "Nice story. What in the world does it have to do with Lucy?"

There was a sound like the slapping of a forehead. "Bother! If I haven't gone around the whole point!"

"Left it out clean and good you did! No one could do it better. Keep it up, chief, keep it up!"

Eustace moaned.

Caspian shook his head.

Winks forced back a laugh.

"I needn't go over the whole story again?" The chief voice said unsurely.

"No!" Everyone screamed out at once, almost knocking some plate off the side of the table.

Caspian broke into a cough and Ramandu's daughter had to pound him on the back until he regained composure.

"Well then, it's just this. We need little Lucky-"

"Lucy." Edmund corrected him.

"Right, little Lusery-"

"Lucy!"

"Little Lurcy-"

"Lu-cee!" Edmund sounded it out for them.

Lucy put her hand on Edmund's shoulder. "Close enough, let it go."

"The little er...girl...to go on up to the book room and find a way to make us visible again." The chief voice said, finally getting to the point.

"Why her?" Caspian asked curiously.

"Because only a little girl or else a star can do it." The chief voice said rather gravely. "Otherwise, it doesn't work."

"What about _your_ little girl?" Eustace asked pointedly. "Couldn't you just send her up there again?"

The chief voice sounded somewhere between insulted and alarmed. "Me, send my darling Clipsie? Up into danger? Again? I would do it! It was hard enough the first time. You can't imagine the pain of worrying if she's alright up there-hour after hour-the terror!"

"We will if you insist on sending Lucy up there." Edmund pointed out bitterly.

"Well if she refuses, you'll all die, including her." The chief voice sighed. "We wouldn't like it but it would be done."

Suddenly Ramandu's daughter stood up. "Spare her, let me do it."

"What?" They all gasped at once.

"You are too old, I think." The chief voice said.

"But I have star's blood in me." She reminded them. To Caspian, Edmund, Winks, Eustace, and Lucy, she whispered, "If I happen to meet this star, he might not do anything to me for my father's sake. It'll be safer for me."

Edmund felt relief wash over him. Sorry as he was for Ramandu's daughter, he couldn't help feeling very nearly over-joyed that Lucy wouldn't be forced to go up there and solve the foolish creatures' problems.

"It wont do, it wont do." The chief voice decided. "Wont do at all."

"That's right, keep it up." The annoying echo of agreements was once more unavoidable. "Wont do! Wont do! Hear him! Hear him!"

"Why ever not?" Ramandu's daughter demanded, folding her arms across her chest.

"It wouldn't do because you mightn't be a full-blooded star. Maybe your father was one, what about your mother then? It might not work for you, best not take any chances, send the little one." The chief said firmly.

"She's not that little." Edmund retorted.

"Little enough." The chief said.

"That's right, little enough. So well put! Keep it up, keep it up!"

"Too bad, it might have been a chance to get away from _them_." Ramandu's daughter whispered shortly to her husband.

"I see what you mean." He agreed.

"I wouldn't have to go up there tonight in the dark, would I?" Lucy asked fearfully in a rather timid tone of voice. She wasn't afraid of the dark in places she knew but in places like this it was quite a different matter. Who knew what was really up there? Surely these creatures weren't bright enough to get any facts straight, yet there might really be a mean star with special powers up there all the same; waiting to punish a trespasser perhaps.

"No! No!" the voices assured her. "Go in the dark? Horrible! We aren't so awful as all that! No! We wouldn't dare send a poor little girl like you up there at night! Goodness, what do you take us for?"

"This from creatures who threatened to _kill_ us." Eustace whispered to Edmund with a strong hint of sarcasm.

"I'll do it." Lucy decided.

Edmund jumped up from his seat. "Lucy-"

"No, Ed, I have to do it." Lucy said bravely. "It'll be alright."

"I hope so." Edmund's voice cracked a little as he spoke.

Cheers erupted from the voices. "Hooray! Hurrah! Three cheers for the little girl!"

"Three cheers for Lusty!"

Edmund snapped his forehead.

Lucy forced a smile. "Tomorrow morning, then?"

"Tomorrow morning."


	14. a night in the voice's manor

"The little girl shall have her own bed chamber." The chief voice said decisively. "A thank you from us to her, the rest of you can share."

"A fine gesture!" the agreeing voices echoed in without fail. "So kind! Keep it up chief, keep it up."

"But of course you shall all be given your own beds." The chief voice continued. "What a tired person wants is a bed to sleep on. People love to sleep when they're tired."

"Well said, chief, keep it up!"

"What I wouldn't give to hear just one of them disagree!" Ramandu's daughter exclaim-whispered to Winks who let out a mild chuckle.

"My sister will take the little girl to the chamber that will be given to her." The chief voice told them.

"Yes, chief, keep it up; I'd be happy to do it." A female voice answered cheerfully-of course.

Lucy heard a thump-thumping by her side and thought she could sense what felt almost like an arm on her back leading her away from the others. Part of her wanted to protest but she mostly trusted them-she knew more than ever that they were too foolish to plot anything that might cause her real harm-and the unseen creature walking behind her was causing the ground behind her to shake; nudging her along. She looked back over her shoulder shooting a slightly nervous glance at Edmund and Caspian before turning away and traveling down a relatively short hallway.

The female voice chattered on mostly in stupid agreements to everything the chief had said a few minutes before and then in more lament about how much she loathed being ugly and now tiresome it was to be invisible, and wasn't the Chief the very image of learnedness?

Lucy nodded and muttered, "Yes, of course." Whenever the most seemed right. But for the most part, she just allowed her thoughts to wander. What would it be like to spend the night here? And what would happen to her tomorrow when she had to help out the voices? Would the star be as horrible as they said? Would she meet him or be lucky enough to slip by without being noticed? Where was he? Was he invisible now too? Oh, dear. She shuddered a little as she watched the door to the chamber swing open under the strain of the bouncing creature who was still prattling on about the chief.

A tiny piece of wax from the candle the creature was carrying broke apart during one of the heavier bounces and landed on Lucy's arm. She gasped in surprise and then quickly brushed it off before it could become a burn or draw the attention of the creature who was sure to over-react to such a thing.

The room's carpet and curtains were dark crimson and the bed sheets on the four-poster bed from what Lucy could make out in the candlelight were indigo with aquamarine-coloured pillows. The style seemed to follow no particular pattern and seemed to shun no colours no matter how good or bad they looked together. And yet somehow it didn't have a very rainbow-like appearance about it; rainbows were pretty, this room was not.

Standing off and holding back a yawn, Lucy watched the candle bop up and down until the creature placed it on a bed-side table and told her to blow it out whenever she was ready and then-judging by the shaking floors and slamming door-left the chamber.

The room wasn't too cold but Lucy still shivered. She couldn't deny it any longer, there was no hiding from it-she was afraid. Afraid of where she had been, afraid of where she was now, and afraid of where she would be. It was a very different sort of fear than she'd felt when she was going to be sold as a slave-that had been more an overall dread while this was mostly like the fear one gets when a doctors is about to stick a very large needle rather roughly into your arm. You know it wont kill you-probably-but you still wish you could avoid it some how and know that is impossible. You are going to be poked and your arm is going to hurt.

She stood in the room and rubbed her arms trying to rid herself of the goosebumps and numb feeling in them. Then she sat down on the bed and stared at the burning candle watching the wax get lower and lower. How would she ever get to sleep tonight? She simply couldn't.

A knock at the door made her jump. Who was it? Another one of the voices? The star himself?

"W-w-who's there?" Lucy finally managed to stammer, getting up from the bed and wrapping her arms tightly around one of the posts, pulling her entire body as close to it as possible as it would be able to protect her from harm.

"Lu, are you in there?"

"Edmund?" Lucy knew that voice. She let go of the post-her arms were starting to ache from holding onto it so tightly anyway, and raced over to open the door.

Edmund walked in and squinted, just barely able to see her because the candle was more of stub now, very likely to go out on its own at any given moment.

"Lu?"

"Yes."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "I was looking for you."

"Why?" Lucy blurted out.

" _Why_?" Edmund laughed. "Because I was worried about you, that's why." He shook his head. "I've been looking searching all of the bedrooms downstairs-I know they wouldn't have put you upstairs so at least that narrowed it down a bit."

"Couldn't you have just asked them?" Lucy pointed out.

Edmund tossed his head back and let out a rather unkingly snort. "Ask them? Of course not, they aren't any help at all. The chief says, 'The little girl needs her rest, do not disturb her' and all the others chime in with automatic agreements."

Lucy let out a weak giggle. "They're harmless, Ed."

"Yes, I know they are." Edmund agreed with a heavy sigh. "But I don't like the idea of you having to face this star person all on your own."

Lucy shook her head. "Me either but there's a good chance I wont even meet him at all, I hope."

"We could run." Edmund suggested. "All of us, out of the house and back to the ship."

"We wouldn't make it passed the voices." Lucy told him. "We can't see them, so how would we know they were asleep?"

"Listen for snoring?" Edmund shrugged.

"I can't go." Lucy said decisively. "I gave them my word, Edmund."

"I see." Edmund turned and put his hand on the doorknob, ready to leave. "Good night, Lucy."

"Wait." Lucy called after him.

He stopped mid-step and turned back around to face her.

"Don't go." Lucy said, feeling rather small and timid when she heard the squeak and desperation in her own voice.

Edmund didn't go. Without a word he climbed into the bed and made himself comfortable.

Lucy smiled and climbed in on the other side. She lifted her hand up close to Edmund's and he grabbed onto it; their fingers intertwined. Suddenly the room felt colder, the candle was more distant and fading than an ember on a windy afternoon. She pulled herself closer to him; he felt warm. Tightening her grip on his hand, she pressed her forehead against his. A slight draft blew out the last remains of the candle leaving them alone in the dark.

When they woke up (Still forehead to forehead, not having moved all night), they thought it must still be very early because of the lack of light in the room. They quickly found though that this was due only to the thick curtains and the cold gray rain that pelted the window outside. An icy morning combo of lighting and thunder echoed making Lucy shudder, shiver, and jump at the slightest sight or sound. As if having to go up there wasn't bad enough, to have to do it on a day like this? Lucy shuddered for the thousandth time that morning.

Edmund put his arms around her and tried to comfort her the best he could; he said nothing simply because he wasn't sure if there was anything useful that could be said at a time like this. At least she hadn't been alone last night that much was all he could offer.

"Do you think they'd let me go with you?" Edmund wondered aloud.

"No, I have to go alone." Lucy said sort of quietly. "Thank you, though."

They made the bed, left the chamber, and headed down to the room with the dinning table where Winks, Ramandu's daughter, Caspian, and Eustace were all sitting at breakfast already.

"Just where were you last night?" Eustace demanded, shooting Edmund the stink-eye (Thunderstorms made him rather bad tempered because secretly he hadn't quite gotten over his fear of them yet; pretend as he might that he had).

"With Lucy." Edmund said honestly.

Caspian gave them a concerned look and raised an eyebrow.

Neither bothered to defend themselves, they both knew it was completely innocent and were too worn down to defend themselves now.

Winks stood up for them though. "Oh, let them alone, both of you. You're like a pack of mothers!"

The invisible voices gave them a fine breakfast filled with twice as many agreements as the supper the night before. Lucy grew so tired of listening to them that she began to wonder if she wouldn't rather meet up with the wicked star just to have a conversation that included a disagreement for a little while-she'd nearly forgotten what conflict between others was like.

After breakfast the voices led Lucy to the staircase and told her to go on and get it over with.

"What page am I to look for in this book?" Lucy asked them.

The voices seemed to think the only way to find your place in a book was to start at the beginning and keep going until you reached it. It was no use trying to convince them otherwise.

Edmund pulled Lucy to him on the step right before she started to climb them. "I'll be right here when you get back."

"I know you will." Lucy whispered, leaning closer to him.

He kissed her and then threw his arms around her in a tight embrace.

"I'll be alright." Lucy said softly.

"I know." Edmund gulped, trying to sound convincing.

"You have to let go of my hands." Lucy reminded him.

"Huh?"

"My hands." she repeated.

Edmund looked down and saw that he was still clinging tightly to her wrists, not wanting to let her go. He let go of one. "Sorry."

"The other one too, Ed." Lucy whispered.

"Oh, right." He let it go slowly and with his free hand he took off his gold ring and slipped it onto her thumb.

"Why are you giving me this?" Lucy asked breathlessly.

"Just hang onto it for now." Edmund told her.

"Sure." Lucy gulped and tried to blink back the tears forming in her eyes. She placed her hand on the long shinny banister and walked up as quickly as her legs would take her, fighting the urge to look back over her shoulder.

The second floor was a long narrow carpeted hallway that sort of reminded Lucy both of the professor's house and of a hotel she and her family had stayed in once when they were very small. There were strange paintings of women who looked sort of fairy-like and hollow-faced masks with long droopy ribbons handing from the walls.

She had been told the book room was the very last one on the left and tried to ignore the fact that her whole body was shaking timidly as she passed each open doorway wondering if someone-or something was going to come out and grab her. But no, nothing did, the place seemed vacant and after a while she started to relax a little and almost enjoy the long stroll and the tip-taping sound of the rain on the roof above.

Suddenly she let out a yelp and jumped back because she was certain that she had seen a bearded face looking out at her on one side of the hallway. She saw nothing there but a large silver-framed looking-glass. She peered into it and saw her own reflection but with a large bushy beard on it. She crinkled her forehead and touched her chin. It was as smooth as butter; there was no real hair there. She couldn't help herself, she burst out laughing. What a funny joke! It was like a fun house mirror. As quickly as she let herself go she clamped her hand over her mouth, supposing the master of the house had heard that?

She paused for a few moments but nothing happened. She started walking down the hallway again until she reached the right door. It was already open, a small wooden wedge kept it from shutting.

Once she was inside the room, she tried very hard to pull the wedge out so that she could shut the door behind herself but couldn't unearth it no matter how hard she yanked on it.

In the end she was left with no choice but to give up and turned her attention now to the room itself.


	15. A good star, vain dufflepuds

The room was simply bursting with books, heaps and heaps of them. Rows of several dozen of them were tightly fitted on bookshelves that lined the walls, more still lay in tall piles that stood like block towers at all corners. Some were larger than the biggest bibles or text books ever seen by human eyes (Giant's books, Lucy thought) and others were so small they could have fit in a doll's lap.

As terribly interesting they all were, Lucy knew she hadn't the time to bother with them. She had to find the special book-the one that had turned the voices invisible-and use it to change them back.

Finding it turned out not to be very hard-as she had feared it might when she'd first seen all of these other books-because surely it was the large copper-bound book on the long-legged wooden table by the small ebony framed window. As soon as Lucy laid eyes on it she was somehow certain that this was the right one.

She slowly but steadily crept over to the table and touched it. She felt a shock run up and down her arm and was unsure if it was from the book or simply her own awe and dread playing tricks on her. Taking a deep breath, she tried to lift the cover. Much to her disappointment and annoyance, it wouldn't lift at all. She tugged at it. Nothing. Was there some sort of power holding the book shut? Maybe the star-the master of the house-was there invisibly holding the book shut so she couldn't open it. She gulped and turned around. There was no one there. Of course there wasn't anyone she could see there, yet, mightn't there be something she _couldn't_ see?

As soon as she was able to calm her nerves and reassure herself that she was indeed alone, she turned back to the book and burst out laughing. For now she saw the real reason she had been unable to open it. Not an enchantment at all, simply a leather-metal clasp holding it shut that she needed to unfasten! She clamped her hand over her mouth to force back the remaining giggles as she got the book open at last.

Right away she noticed how different this book was from any other book she had ever seen before. The words seemed to be written, not typed, but in the most perfectly legible letters she'd ever imagined; scrip with loops but not overly extravagant in the least. No one Lucy knew, not even Susan who had lovely handwriting, had ever written words like these. Strangely enough, Lucy wasn't even sure they were in English but she could understand them anyway as if they were written just for her.

The first few pages, although very interesting and lovely to behold, served no real purpose for Lucy's mission. She turned page after page and somewhere near the middle of the book came across the words, 'A way to make she who reads this, the most beautiful person to ever live'. Lucy's secretly longing for beauty sprang up into her heart again. It grew as she suddenly noticed there were pictures on the page as well. They were of herself but different, this Lucy was stunningly beautiful; dazzlingly so.

And, oh, there were more pictures than just one! There was one of Lucy traveling back through the lone islands and everyone gaping at her and one of her back in Narnia with all the talking beast, fauns, and dryads gazing at her in amazement-unable to tear their eyes away from her.

She was about to give it and read aloud the words that the book instructed her on when she saw two more pictures that she had been certain had not been there just a moment before.

In one, she had left this room and gone back down the stairs and was standing face-to-face with Edmund. He saw her beautiful self but did not seem at all pleased. He looked horribly disappointed and although there were no words near that picture, Lucy knew by his expression that he must have been saying something along the lines of, "What happened to you?"

Oh, Lucy thought feeling a little less excited about what she was going to do, Ed loves me the way I am now; unenchanted, regular-faced, me.

She remembered his expression when she'd used that cloak to make herself pretty before. He hadn't liked that either.

Well, she decided, maybe he can learn to like me when I look pretty, after all, I'll still be the same person, so what does it matter?

But she decided to look at the second picture before making up her mind again and what she saw broke her heart. There was Aslan standing next to the beautiful version of Lucy, they were standing on a tall green cliff near a calm blue sea. That Lucy had her head hung sadly and tears were falling from her eyes because Aslan looked so pained. His face seemed somewhere between about to growl and about to cry. His eyes shone with great big tears so much bigger than any Lucy had ever cried herself or seen anyone else cry before.

As quickly as she could move her fingers, she turned the page, she didn't want to want to be beautiful so badly that it would disappoint the boy she loved and hurt the Lion she adored. Nothing was worth that. It would be best if she simply stayed the same old Lucy. Nothing was wrong with her as she was.

The next page her gaze fell on was almost as interesting as the last one had been. On this page, you could learn 'What your friends _really_ thought about you'. Lucy had never really befriended anyone she thought she couldn't trust and expected that by staying on the page and finding out what they really thought, she would simply see her good and loyal friends saying kind things about her. It would be a sort of reward for not turning herself beautiful on the last page, she decided.

The pictures came in more like a grainy film strip but they were of real people; Lucy's real best school chum, Marjorie and an older girl a few grades ahead of them named, Anne. At first there was no sound but then it came on with a gradual clicking like when you tune a radio onto the right station.

"Will I see anything of you this term or are you going to be all taken up with Lucy Pevensie like last term?" Anne asked, adjusting a white glove which was sliding the wrong way off her hand.

"What do you mean by taken up?" Marjorie laughed nervously, playing with the edge of her dress.

"Oh, do come off it!" Anne said sternly. "You know perfectly well what I mean. You were simply crazy about that little story telling elf of a child last term."

"Of course I was not!" Marjorie blurted out. "She's not a bad little kid-in her own way-but I was growing awful tired of her anyhow."

Two of Lucy's tears rolled down the bridge of her nose and landed in the book's binding. Unable to listen any longer to her so-called friend, she turned the page and was delightfully surprised.

One this page was something very much unlike anything else she had seen in the book so far. It was a story. She read it happily on for three pages, loving every sheer second of it, long forgetting her former sadness. At the end she sighed contently.

"That is the best story I've ever read or probably shall ever read in my whole life!" Lucy exclaimed happily, reaching over to turn the pages back again. "I'll read it through one more time."

Much to her disappointment, the pages the story had been on were now blank. Plain white with no pictures or words at all. There was nothing left for her to do but keep going on in the book.

'How to turn hidden things visible' finally caught her eye.

"It's about time!" Lucy said, carefully looking over the words to be sure she could pronounce them all. She said them all aloud and then heard a familiar voice from behind her.

"Lucy?"

She spun around and saw Aslan himself standing behind her, his lovely golden self more wonderful than ever before. Her face lit up and she ran over to him and threw her arms around his neck.

"It was so nice of you to come!" Lucy cried out joyfully. "When did you arrive?"

"I've been here all along, dear one." Aslan told her. "Just invisible, you turned me visible when you brought back the dufflepuds."

"As if anything I could do could have an effect on you!" Lucy retorted, thinking that her beloved Lion was making fun of her. "And what _are_ 'the dufflepuds'?"

"The voices." Aslan explained, placing a velveted golden paw on her right shoulder to reassure her. "They were once called duffers, now they are called dufflepuds."

"Aslan, will you stay a while?" Lucy asked eagerly.

"No, dear heart, I am afraid I must go very soon." Aslan said gravely. "I've other countries to attend to."

Lucy hung her head sadly.

"Chin up, Lucy." Aslan said to comfort her. "First, I will introduce you to the master of the house."

"The wicked star?" Lucy gasped.

"Nay, he is not wicked." Aslan explained. "The dufflepuds are too stupid to understand that."

"I see." Lucy nodded, holding her own hand and walking slowly over to the open doorway.

Standing there now was a tall but slightly stout man dressed in shimmering dark blue robes. He had a friendly pale round face that reminded Lucy a good deal of the professor she, Peter, Susan, and Edmund had stayed with during the war years.

The star bowed to Aslan and said welcome.

Aslan spoke to him asking if he was wearily of the dufflepuds or not.

"I like them a good deal, if only they would listen to me, once in a while." The star sighed. "Yet, I have brought this on myself and you, Aslan, have been more than fair."

Aslan nodded.

"Will you show yourself to them?" The star asked.

"No, Coriakin." Aslan laughed. "Many more stars than you will fall before they are ready for that."

"You never spoke a truer word." Coriakin agreed.

"I will leave you now." Aslan sighed, turning to Lucy. "But in the future, you would do better not to eavesdrop on your friend. She said cruel things but those words did not come from her heart, she love you; she is simply weak."

"I cannot forget what she said to me." Said Lucy, looking deeply pained.

"I know." Aslan said softly, leaving them at last. "Farewell for now, Lucy."

"Wait!" Lucy dared to grab onto his mane. "Please, when will I see you again?"

"Soon." Aslan's lips curled up into a smile.

"What do you call soon?" Lucy persisted.

"All times." Aslan said, leaving as he spoke. "All times are soon to me, dear one."

Lucy looked over at Coriakin who smiled at her and bowed. "You are Queen Lucy from the old stories of Narnia are you not?"

Lucy smiled back at him. "I am."

For a moment they stood there saying nothing until Lucy's stomach rumbled and Coriakin asked when she had last had something to eat.

"This morning." Lucy told him. "But I don't know what time it is now."

"All times may be soon to Aslan but all hungry times for me in my house are one in the afternoon and it's a full hour passed that." Coriakin laughed good-naturedly, grabbing onto her hand and leading her into a small comfortable looking tea-room.

There was a small table with two dark red arm chairs on either side of it for them to sit in by a warm crackling fire.

Coriakin waved his hands over the bare table and it was instantly covered with food of the sort Lucy had once eaten as a queen in Narnia. She looked at him with surprise. How had he known what she would like to eat?

"I have tried to provide you with food of the sort you would be more likely to enjoy." He explained modestly.

They ate together and talked. Lucy said she was terribly sorry to come crashing into his house, looking through his books, bothering him at lunch but it really couldn't be helped.

"I know." He said. "I've been expecting the dufflepuds to pull a stunt like this for a while."

Lucy took a bite of the food and said, "But now that they're themselves again, will you let them off being ugly?"

"Ugly?" The star clinked his tongue. "They're so vain to think they were nicer looking before I changed them."

"Was it an improvement?" Lucy wanted to know.

"See for yourself." Coriakin, standing up and drawing the curtain from the window to the left of them.

Lucy looked out and saw a bunch of funny little strangely pleasant-looking creatures jumping up and down on one single large foot-for they had one to bounce on rather than two to walk with.

"Oh, the funnies!" Lucy burst out laughing. "What did they look like before?"

"Plain dwarfs, not nearly as nice as the sort you have in Narnia." Coriakin said with a shrug.

"Then it wouldn't be unkind to leave them like that?" Lucy asked hopefully.

"No, it wouldn't." Coriakin said.

"It's too bad they think they look ugly." Lucy sighed. Suddenly she had an idea. "Why don't you talk to them? Wont they believe you?"

He let out a snort. "Goodness, no!"

"Well what if I was to tell them how nice they looked?" Lucy wondered aloud. "Do you suppose they might listen to me?"

"Perhaps they might." The star mused, stroking his beard as he spoke. "You could try it."

"The others will be wondering about what's happened to me." Lucy realized, thinking especially of Edmund at the bottom of the staircase waiting for her to return.

"Then you had better go to them right away if you've had enough to eat." The star suggested with another friendly smile.

"Thanks for the lunch, it was lovely." Lucy stood on her tip-toes and kissed him goodbye on the cheek the way she would have kissed her own grandfather.

Moments later, she dashed down the stairs where Edmund was sitting at the bottom step. His eyes were closed and his head was leaned back on the banister.

"Ed!" Lucy called down to him.

"Lucy?" His eyes shot open. He ran up the remaining steps and threw his arms around her. "I thought you were lost! When the dufflepuds came into sight and you didn't come back, I was so worried!"

"I'm fine." Lucy assured him.

"What about the star, did you escape him?" Edmund asked, still clinging to one of her arms.

"He's wonderful, Edmund." Lucy laughed. "He's just a nice old man, the voices are scared of nothing at all."

"That sounds like them alright." Edmund hugged her again.

She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.


	16. Escaping the dark island

Try as she might, Lucy could not convince the dufflepuds that they were not as hideous as they thought they were. After trying to reason with them for nearly a half hour, she exclaimed, "You're enough to drive anyone mad!"

"When people talk loudly, they're upset." The chief dufflepud said in a voice that was meant to be inspirational.

"What a way to put it! You are a great speaker! Good for you, Chief, keep it up, keep it up."

"Ooh!" Lucy stamped her foot and stormed off.

Thankfully, they did not have to stay with the dufflepuds much longer because now that the silly creatures had been turned visible again, they were free to leave. After stocking up on some food that the star kindly provided them with for their remaining journey (Although he could tell them nothing of lands further east) along with a good map of all the places they had already been.

"Sorry that I haven't any information on where you might be headed but I dare say that map will come in handy whenever you need to be heading back to where you came from." Coriakin said cheerfully as he helped them load up the Dawn Treader.

After a goodbye filled with far too many agreements-from the dufflepud's of course-everyone found themselves back at sea.

For the next few days, nothing happened. They simply sailed on smooth, ordinary, sea water until one day Lucy happened to look over the ship's railing and exclaimed, "Ed, what's that? Oil?"

Edmund came over and looked down. At once, he saw what looked like something pitch-black, floating in the water they were headed towards. It was odd-looking but he was fairly certain that it was not oil. "It's more like a shadow."

"But of what?" Lucy wondered aloud. "It can't be of the boat." She pointed up at the sky. "Look at the way the sun is; our shadow would be directly behind us, wouldn't it?"

Edmund's forehead clinked slightly. "I think you're right, Lu." He called to Caspian over his shoulder. "What does this look like to you?"

Caspian leaned over and squinted. "Black water?"

"What's happened to it?" Ramandu's daughter asked, curiously.

As the head of the ship started to sail on the tip of the blackness, Caspian suddenly noticed something like dark rain clouds with lighting up ahead. Thunder rumbled.

"We're driving straight into a storm." He announced.

"It's not an ordinary storm, sire." The ship's captain said gravely. "I've seen a lot of storms but I've never seen anything like this. More like a wall of darkness, right in front of us."

"Let's go away from it." Eustace suggested, noticing the strange mist they were sailing towards.

Reepicheep came forward with his mouth half way open in a sort of almost cat-like expression; as though he'd caught a whiff of a shocking odor. "Your majesties, I must beg your pardon. Why ever would you consider turning back?"

"Because, Reep," Edmund explained. "It's dark..." He scrunched up his nose, knowing how stupid that must have sounded. He couldn't explain it but he knew somehow that it was something unpleasant they were headed towards.

Reepicheep insisted that there was no reason that two grown kings should fear the dark, and that he himself as a lordly mouse and a knight of Narnia, was not afraid.

"At the very least, we should be prepared." Caspian decided, giving Reepicheep an understanding, but stern, glance. "Remember, Reepicheep, it's not just blind fear, we are in a place we do not know-anything could be there." To the crew he explained what they should do. "Let lanterns be hung about the ship for light and each man must have his sword ready. Eustace, you may borrow my second-best one since you haven't one of your own. Lucy, have an arrow in your bow; ready to use it if you must."

As they sailed into the darkness, which was becoming a sort of mist all around the Dawn Treader now, Lucy felt beads of sweat run down her fingers making it harder and harder to keep a strong hold on her bow and arrow. Her fingers cramped up and she was terrified that she would release it too soon or too late or else with by accident with no reason-possibly hitting someone inadvertently.

"I don't like this." Eustace whispered to Edmund. "I have the worst feeling in my stomach."

"Aye," Agreed Winks, over-hearing him. "And isn't it hot?"

"It _is_ rather muggy." Edmund said, using his free hand to wipe his most forehead dry.

"Are you hot?" Ramandu's daughter sounded surprised. "I'm cold as could be. It's like ice in here-like a dying star." She shuddered and took a step closer to Caspian.

"Well nothing bad has really happened yet." Pattertwig reminded them. "We're alright, I'm sure we are."

Suddenly, an agonized scream so piteous and nerve-racking that everyone instantly felt like crying at the very sound of it, echoed in the darkness.

"I say, Edmund, was that you?" Eustace gasped.

"I didn't scream." Edmund told him. "I'm right next to you; can't you tell?"

"It's too dark, even with the lights." Eustace said, squinting into the veil like mist. "I thought you were Caspian."

"No, Caspian's over there." Edmund said, motioning to the other side of the deck.

"It must have been someone out there." Ramandu's daughter realized. "Poor thing!"

"Who are you?" Caspian cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out, hanging slightly over the deck.

"Mercy!" Wailed a voice in the water below them. "Have mercy! Take me with you! Let me up, don't leave me here!"

"If you are a friend you are welcome to us, sir." Reepicheep told him.

Some of the sailors were sent to pull the poor frightened man up onto the deck. He was sobbing and thrashing about the whole time in a terrible panic.

In the dim lantern-light, Lucy caught sight of him. His hair was as white and feathery as snow but he otherwise did not seem very old, middle aged perhaps. His eyes were the widest she had ever seen in her life and she wondered if he knew-or had ever known-how to close them at all. His clothing was ragged and pathetic.

"Who are you?" Edmund asked, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword just in case the crazed man turned out to be an enemy after all.

"Oh, they once called me Rhoop, Lord Rhoop." He bawled dramatically. "but what does that matter now? A broken man am I! If only I'd stayed in Narnia, where it was good and safe. If only they hadn't sent me away with the others." And with that, he broke down crying even harder than before.

"Lord Rhoop, you are safe with us." Caspian said consolingly. "I am King Caspian. You are one of the lords I have set out to find."

"Bless you, Bless you!" Cried the lord Rhoop almost-happily. "Tis your father's voice!"

"Alright, let's keep sailing forward." Winks said sort of absent-mindedly.

"What?" Lord Rhoop bellowed, putting his hand to his heart and looking very much like he was going to have a stroke. "No! No! No! Fly from here at once! Row, Row, Row. Flee! Get that sail a-blowin' the other way."

"Not so fast." Reepicheep said calmly. "You must explain to us what we are trying to avoid, we are not used to fleeing."

"You must leave this place before it is too late." Rhoop sobbed. "It was almost too late for me...until you came, goodness knows how long it's been."

"Was it so horrible?" Lucy wanted to know.

"What is it exactly?" Eustace put in.

"It's the island where..." He lowered his voice and gulped. "...where dreams come true."

There was a burst of thunder but no one paid it any mind. Caspian said nothing. Eustace coughed. Edmund blinked in confusion. Most of the sailors burst out into happy laughter.

"Dreams? Why must we flee from our dreams?" One sailor laughed.

"Why, I'll bet I'd be happily married to a beautiful woman if we landed there." Another sailor whistled excitedly.

"I'd have my own manor!" Eustace announced.

"No, no, no!" Rhoop shook his head wildly. "Not day dreams, not wishes, real dreams. Nightmares too."

"What was that sound?" Edmund gasped suddenly taking a step closer to Lucy.

"You mean the thunder?" Lucy asked him.

"No, it's a different sound." Edmund gulped, seeming a little frightened.

"Do you hear something like a giant pair of scissors opening and closing?" Eustace whimpered.

"No, it's more like a pack of wolves on the hunt, howling." Winks shuddered.

"We must get out of here now." Caspian decided.

Reepicheep started to protest but the others told him to hush up and that they didn't care what he said, they were leaving this place at once and sailing around it.

The boat was turned around in such a haste that Ramandu's daughter lunched sideways and would have fallen over if Caspian had not caught her. Lucy unfortunately, slipped the other way when the boat was turned and unknown to them had fallen and slid on her knees to the other end of the boat were the only lantern had gone out. Her whole weight had landed on the bow and snapped it in half. She tried to cry out for the others but her mouth felt dry and no sound came out of her throat.

More thunder boomed. Scary sounds echoed and bad dreams long forgotten popped back into everyone's mind. There was plenty of nail biting and even a bit of weeping going on with the crew.

The dark sky above them burst open and rain started to fall thickly in a vicious storm that seemed to be trying to keep them from leaving the darkness. Lighting flashed every now and then in horrible zigzags all around them.

Lucy managed to stand up and rub her stinging and bruised knees. She called out for Edmund but he didn't answer her. She started walking back towards the lanterns on the other end but they kept blinking off and on like a power-failure in an electric storm.

"Edmund?" She called, walking slowly; hearing the horrible cries and echoes seemingly from all directions.

If I keep walking forward, I'll reach him sooner or later, Lucy decided, trying to be brave. She cringed inwardly and kept moving around the deck. Suddenly, she bumped into someone.

It was someone taller than her, she looked up just as lighting was striking near by and she saw his face-it looked exactly like King Miraz. It couldn't be! Miraz was dead! But surely that was him right in front of her now. She could see his face in the dim light when the lanterns finally came back on after the loudest burst of thunder left.

"Lucy," Miraz took a step towards her.

Lucy put her hands behind her own waist and pulled herself back towards the long wooden mast. "Stay away from me." She didn't like admit it but she was scared of him. This horrible man had tried to hang her elder brother just to make himself seem powerful and he had entered her nightmares more than once.

"Lucy, it's me." He said.

A sob escaped from Lucy's throat. "Keep away from me, I'll scream."

"Lucy, are you alright?"

She threw her arms around the mast and whimpered. "Please go away...you aren't real, you can't be; You died carrying the gold."

"Lucy, concentrate, look at my face." The voice actually didn't sound as much like Miraz as it should have.

Lucy squinted; for a moment, Miraz's face became younger and smoother. It didn't look like him at all. More like Caspian. Then darkness. Followed by lighting. Then Miraz returned.

Lucy started crying all over again.

He grabbed onto her wrist. "Queen Lucy, look at me."

Caspian-not Miraz. Safe. Lucy blinked in confusion. "Caspian?"

She realized now that she'd been hallucinating and it had only been Caspian all along. She remembered what Pattertwig had said, about nothing bad having actually happened to any of them yet. Looking over her shoulder at the other end of the boat, the pitch black one, she saw something bright and golden and warm-looking shinning there. It was Aslan himself standing on the deck, his mouth was open and he was roaring or else singing.

Then, the dark mist was gone and the storm clouds rowed away. They weren't trapped in the island where dreams came true anymore.

"You-you've destroyed it!" Rhoop gasped, looking at Caspian, Edmund, Eustace, and the crew with complete amazement. "How did you do it?"

"I don't think it was us." Lucy told him. "Aslan was here."

"Was he?" Eustace asked, seeming more than a little surprised.

"Didn't you see him?" Lucy asked.

"No." Eustace shrugged his shoulders.

"Well you were on the other side of the deck." Lucy said, looking over at Caspian. "But you were with me. You saw him, didn't you?"

Caspian shook his head. "I saw you, you were scared and I led you back over here-so you would be safe with the rest of us-and then somehow the darkness was all gone."

"Well he _was_ here." Lucy insisted.

"Yes, I believe you." Edmund smiled at her.

Lucy smiled back at him. "You always believe me, Ed."


	17. A golden lady at the star's ball

A few miles away from the former location of the dark island where dreams came true, a new sort of breeze blew around the ship, gently nudging the sail forward at a gentle, steady, pace. It was the sort of air that makes you think of a time you can't quite remember-perhaps when you were small and were taken out to the park in the early springtime or like feeling the heat of a hot shower floor on the way to the public pool when you were but six or seven years old-something distant and unimportant but lovely just to you; making your insides feel soothed.

"It's a dim purple kind of smell." Lucy said, leaning over the port side of the ship and letting the breeze blow her hair behind her.

"You can't smell colours, Lu." Edmund teased, laughing a little.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Oh, as if you could explain it any better!"

Edmund shrugged his shoulders, defeated.

Eustace laughed and said that he agreed with Edmund that smelling colours was all rot.

"I think I know what she means." Ramandu's daughter said sort of quietly. "And I think I know where we are going."

"What place is that?" Caspian asked curiously.

"I know this smell." Ramandu's daughter told him. "And I know this sea; we are headed for my former home."

Eustace crinkled his forehead. "But if you've lived here, how is it that you've been to Narnia and haven't seen any of the places we gone through?"

"Father has a winged chariot that he uses sometimes-he's too old to fly on his own and I've never learned how to do anything of the sort myself-he can go up over into the clouds and travel anywhere he likes without going down until he's ready." Ramandu's daughter explained. "Oh, won't it be wonderful to see him again!"

Lucy had another question for her. "Why doesn't your father live in the sky with the other stars, telling centaurs things about life and shooting across blackness, and all the other things stars do?"

"He is retired." Ramandu's daughter explained. "He is too old and frail to stay up there but each day he gets a little younger by eating the fire-berries that grow on the island and someday he will be young enough to return to the heavens."

"What's it like, your place?" Eustace asked eagerly. "Is it nice?"

"It's nice." She assured them. "You'll see for yourselves when you get there."

Less than a half hour later, they came to a stop on the shore of green calm-looking sort of island where it seemed to be twilight all the time. The sky over it did in fact look sort of purple and Lucy couldn't help raising an eyebrow at Edmund who laughed and said it figured that she would be right about this in addition to everything else.

The Lord Rhoop refused to get off the boat. "I don't want to see anymore of islands."

"Please come," Ramandu's daughter pleaded. "You'll like it here."

"I don't want anymore of mystical places. For home only, I yearn." He said in a rather gruff tone that did not match his words very well.

"This was once my home." Ramandu's daughter reminded him. "No dreams come true here."

"What makes it so that I could trust you?" He said rather sourly.

"Remember please, that I am the queen of Narnia; wife of your lord and master, Caspian; whom you have pledged allegiance to by joining us on board." She said in a very royal-sounding voice.

Quite taken aback, Rhoop apologized and agreed to come ashore with them.

"Come all of you." Caspian's wife encouraged them. "There is no need to stay with the boat, no harm will befall you in my father's harbors."

"With a good will, then." Winks said cheerfully, jumping of the side of the ship onto rich-soiled shore.

Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, Caspian, Rhoop, Reepicheep, Pattertwig, Winks, and rest of the crew and company traveled up a little green hill following Ramandu's daughter as she showed them the way. Soon they came to a large stone clearing that Lucy thought looked rather like a ruin with its half-hazard stones and mismatched green patches of reeds in the mist of which was a great silver table inlaid with lines of gold; each as thin as an eyelash.

On this table was the most glorious feast ever seen by the eyes of ordinary humans. Fine stuffed meats, breads of all kinds, cakes, mints, sweets, roasted birds which may have been somewhat like chickens, garlic, onions, beef, tender lamb, and goblets of wine and apple juice.

Eustace's stomach growled as soon as he caught a whiff of it and he waited eagerly, hoping Ramandu's daughter would tell them it was safe to eat.

Lucy felt her mouth water and had to wipe away a thin strand of drool that was rolling down one side of her chin. She hoped Edmund hadn't noticed it-not a very appealing image for a girl, she knew.

Edmund had noticed it-he simply didn't care or give it much thought.

"What a sight for hungry eyes!" Winks finally exclaimed, breaking the silence.

"I know." Lucy agreed with him. "I've never seen a feast like this, not even when my brother, Peter, was the high king."

Edmund nodded, remembering Peter's feasts in Cair Paravel's great dinning hall; those hadn't exactly been lacking either.

"This is Aslan's table." Ramandu's daughter told them.

Lucy's face lit up at the sound of Aslan's name and asked why the table was called by it. Ramandu's daughter had to admit she didn't actually know; it simply had always been 'Aslan's Table' as far back as she could remember even in her youngest girlhood days.

"Can we eat now?" Eustace managed to blurt out.

Ramandu's daughter let out a light bell-like laugh. "Sure, go ahead." She looked over at a large pillared arch to their left. "I'm certain he will be with us shortly."

"Who do you mean?" Caspian asked.

"My father, you've met him, Caspian."

"I remember." Caspian said almost sternly, somewhat insulted that his wife would think he had forgotten his own father-in-law.

But that was the last of the chit-chat because after that they all took their seats and began eating and drinking. At first, Lucy and Ramandu's daughter both troubled themselves about table manners. They tried to take dainty bites and wipe their fingers each time they were stained with any sort of sauce. In the end however, they grew sick of trying to play-act lady-like in front of a much of burping, large-bite-taking, men and gave up on this. Lucy stopped using her napkin and licked her fingers-Edmund smiled at her when he saw that and she blushed. He shrugged and licked a thin residue of plum sauce off of his thumb.

Shortly after they had all had their fill of food, A man with long white hair and a Merlin-beard appeared under the arch. He was tall and thin-boned like his daughter but less slender and shapely than she was. He walked over and greeted them, embracing his daughter tightly.

"Welcome home, my dear." He exclaimed happily.

"Hello, father." She beamed at him. "You remember, Caspian my husband, and these are the sailors, and this is King Edmund and Queen Lucy from the old stories." She motioned to Eustace. "This is their cousin."

Eustace bowed, feeling very much like he was meeting a great king although Ramandu was nothing of the sort and laughed rather loudly (But good-naturedly) at this gesture.

"This is the Lord Rhoop." She moved aside and let her father see the man who stood a little ways behind her.

"This is Reepicheep, knight of Narnia." Caspian's wife introduced the mouse in a way that pleased him very much. "And this here is his squire, Pattertwig."

"A pleasure, my lords." Ramandu said with an amused smile.

"The pleasure is ours." Reepicheep said gratefully.

"My good royal company," Ramandu said in a very formal tone. "From my sky chariot, I have seen your ship coming towards this way and took advantage of that in order to prepare a marvelous ball for you. Would you give me the honour of attending?"

"With a good will, sir." Reepicheep said at once, never one to deny anyone an honour.

"Good knight, sire mouse, to have you shall be a pleasure indeed; but what say the others?" Ramandu asked, glancing at Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, Rhoop, and Caspian.

"What shall they wear, father?" His daughter pointed out. "None of us are dressed properly for such an event."

"Tut-tut." Ramandu shook his head. "Not to worry, all that shall be taken care of."

"Then let us join you." Caspian agreed.

"Very well, follow me." Ramandu turned on his heels and led them past the arch into a beautiful garden with bursting silver-and-jade fountains from which followed water so smooth and clear it looked like glass and perfectly trimmed emerald-coloured grass.

"This wasn't here a moment ago." Eustace realized. "It couldn't have been, we would have seen it through the arch-it was wide open and somewhat broken down at that."

"A lesson for you, king's cousin." Ramandu said, not unkindly. "Things are not always as they seem."

"I believe that!" He laughed.

"Is that your castle up ahead?" Caspian asked, pointing to a large wall made of what looked like tens of thousands of sapphire stones.

"Yes." Ramandu answered. leading them through a little door made of shinning rubies. "This is my home."

As soon as they had stepped inside, Caspian, Winks, Eustace, Edmund, Rhoop, Ramandu's daughter, and all of the sailors found themselves dressed for a ball. All the men in velvet dark-blue tunics and Caspian's wife in a rich sky-blue gown with many soft satin folds that fell all around her and ended at her ankles gracefully.

However, Lucy still wore the same clothing and asked why she also had not been changed as the others had been.

"Worry not, little queen." Ramandu said with a friendly smile. "You will not go unprepared this ball. Go upstairs to the third door on the left and make use of what you will find in the trunk there."

Lucy started for the stairs unsure of what to expect but feeling rather excited all the same. In the room Ramandu had told her to go into, she found a large wood trunk with metal hinges. Pulling back the latch and opening it she saw something bound tightly in cobalt-coloured cloth. She peeled away the cloth and found wrapped in it-much to her great surprise-was her very own golden dress from Narnia. It was the same one she had on when she pretended to be a 'golden lady' to rescue her brother Peter from the gallows. With the dress was her gold belt and matching sword made to hang at the side as well as all of the gold jewelry and the veil that went with it.

As it turned out, some of the Narnian treasures such as Susan's bow and arrows, Peter shield (Caspian still had the sword but taking the shield felt sort of sacrilegious and he couldn't bring himself to keep it), Lucy's dagger that had been given to her with the cordial, the stone knife that the witch had killed Aslan with, and Lucy's 'golden lady' clothes had all been sent back with Ramandu to be held in great honour until the day the world ended-whenever that might be.

Lucy hugged the golden dress tightly to her-it felt very much like meeting an old friend out of the blue-and let out a delighted squeal. She saw that it was still the same size she had taken it in to during her last visit to Narnia and was afraid it might not fit her.

Still, she tried it on and found it slipped comfortably over her head. It still fit her by about a hair of a inch. If she grew even a little bit more, it would be much too small and would need to be taken out again. Now though it fit reasonably well-although she thought it was a tad too tight around her bosom and wasn't terribly comfortable with the way it showed her shape-and wasn't immodest.

Almost embarrassed by the way it fit her, she found herself snatching up the veil as quickly as possible. It wasn't going to be much of a disguise to Edmund or Caspian who had seen her in it before-even though it had been from a distance-but she held onto the hope that it might take them a little longer to figure out exactly who she was giving her time to get more comfortable walking around dressed like that.

With her veil over her face, her belt and sword securely tied to her waist, and little golden slippers on her feet, she walked out of the room and down to where the ball was being held.

The ballroom was filled with stars whom although not retired themselves, had come down for one night to visit Ramandu and attend his ball. And everyone was dancing and celebrating. Everyone that is except Edmund and Reepicheep who were standing over at one corner near a punch bowl filled with some unidentifiable liquid that Stars like to drink but tastes rather vile to most humans who are not used to it.

"Where's Lucy?" Edmund asked Reepicheep. "Hasn't she come down yet?"

"I haven't seen her, your majesty." Reepicheep admitted.

"King Edmund, surely you know women by now!" Winks laughed as he danced by, over-hearing them. "They take for ever to get ready, you know."

"Lucy doesn't." Edmund reminded him.

"She is a girl." Winks pointed out.

"Well I'd certainly hope so!" Edmund snapped.

"I just mean, it's time you started seeing her as such." Winks explained.

"I don't know what you're getting at." Edmund told him. "Of course I see her as a girl-I love her-I sure as heck don't see her as a man!" He wrinkled his nose as Winks. "Exactly how drunk are you?"

"I'm not intoxicated." Winks assured him. "But I don't mean that you don't see her as female I mean simply that you don't see her as a _girl_."

"It's the same thing!" Edmund protested. "What nonsense!"

"I mean a girl who's going to grow up into a _woman_." Winks explained. "I know you've seen her grown-up, but sometimes I wonder if you've forgotten."

Suddenly the star who was taking cloaks and announcing names called out, "Welcome, Lucinda of Archenland."

"I know of no, Lucinda of Archenland." Ramandu said in complete confusion, for some reason not even recognizing the dress that he had seen before in the trunk (Perhaps he was a tad giddy with wine).

Edmund looked up towards the stairs that lead into the ballroom, standing there was a young lady, beautiful in form, dressed in gold from head to toe and she wore a golden veil which covered her face. He stared with wide eyes, completely bewitched.

"That's what I meant." Winks said, before rushing off to dance with a star who was a cousin of Ramandu's daughter.

Edmund walked slowly towards the stairs. "Hello."

Lucy lifted her veil up slightly and smiled at him. "Hullo, Ed."

"Would you like to dance?" Edmund stretched out his hand.

She took it. "Yes, thank you."


	18. Leaving Ramandu

"Tell me, Lucinda of Archenland," Edmund chuckled as he and Lucy walked over towards the ball room's dance floor. "Why is it that you bear a striking resemblance to a certain Queen Lucy of Narnia I know?"

Lucy blushed. She'd of course known that he would recognize her at once, which was why she had wasted no time in lifting the veil and showing him her face but the way he was looking at her made her feel strange; it made her feel pretty.

It took Winks and Caspian less then a second longer-watching Edmund dance with her-to identify the strange new lady at the ball and they both had rather good laughs about how stumped they had been mere moments before.

Most of the sailors figured out that the lady in the golden dress was none other than little Queen Lucy who had been sailing with them for the majority of their voyage but a few were slower and found themselves wondering why on earth King Edmund thought it quite alright to gaze at a strange visitor when there was clearly something between him and Lucy already and wouldn't she be upset when she finally arrived, poor dear?

"Edmund, look at the three men standing in the corner looking tired." Lucy said suddenly.

"Why?" Edmund asked,

"They don't look like stars, do they?" Lucy said in a tone of wonder. "Don't they look much more like...Telmarines...?"

"They do!" Edmund exclaimed. "I'll be! Those must be the last of the lost lords Caspian came to seek."

"And here they are; Ramandu's daughter ought to have said something." Lucy laughed.

Edmund shrugged and spun her around. "Perhaps she didn't know."

"Perhaps." Lucy agreed, she wasn't so sure she wanted to waste away the evening pondering about the lost lords and what they where doing there-all that mattered was that they had been found and Caspian had completed his quest to seek them. She wanted to simply soak up every moment of the ball enjoying every beautiful minute of it. Of being admired by someone who already loved her and was likely to continue loving her long after it was over.

There was dancing and drinking at all hours and not even the younger ones were told that they ought to go to bed, no one took any notice of anyone else when it came to such matters on this night. The heavens above them outside were strangely black because all of the stars were on the island with them but the lamps scattered about the ballroom were more than enough light to celebrate by.

Sometime around midnight, Edmund and Lucy slipped quietly away into one of the chambers that had been set aside for the guests.

Lucy laughed again and took the veil off her head. "I suppose it was a silly idea."

"I thought it was charming." Edmund smiled at her.

"Well, good." Lucy blurted out, not sure of what else to say.

Without another word, Edmund slipped his arms around her waist and started to kiss her. First her lips, then her left cheek, then her neck.

Lucy broke out in a fit of giggles. "Ed, that tickles."

"Sorry." Edmund apologized, pulling away slightly.

"It's alright." Lucy said, leaning in to kiss him again.

They kissed for a little longer before Edmund took his arms from around her and pulled away. "I have to go."

Lucy blinked at him in confusion. "You aren't staying?"

Edmund shook his head. "I can't, Lu. Not tonight."

Lucy didn't understand what he meant yet. "Why not?"

"Because..." He turned a little red in the face. "It wouldn't be right. It would be against your honour."

"Honour?" She crinkled her forehead. "What _are_ you talking about?"

"Things are changing between us, Lucy." Edmund explained gently. "And I don't want to do anything we're going to regret later."

Seeing the look on his face, Lucy finally got the hint. In that one glance, a good deal of the childish innocence of their relationship had vanished, melted away into nearly nothing at all. There was still an innocence in some of it, the way neither of them had ever felt those feelings for anyone else before, the way the one could still make the other blush so easily. Yet, all the same, in that one little glance, you could say they 'grew up' again.

"Alright then." Lucy said softly, watching him get up and leave the room. "See you in the morning."

"See you then." Edmund promised, opening the door and slipping out as quietly as the two of them had slipped in there earlier.

The morning there on Ramandu's island was the strangest morning any of them had ever experienced before in their lives. As the sun-which looked so much larger here than it had in Narnia or on the Lone Islands-rose into the sky, turning the blackness above them into strange lines of indigo and crimson, a strange song filled the air. It was beautiful, deep, musical, and perfect but exactly where it was coming from was impossible to tell. As the song reached it's highest note, all of the windows and doors in Ramandu's castle flew open and a new lovely-smelling air filled the ball room and the guest chambers.

Through all of the windows, thousands of beautiful white birds that looked sort of like doves with longer more swan-like necks soared in. They landed everywhere and covered everything and everyone.

Lucy's own bed was teaming with the strange birds that looked at her with their beautiful bright eyes and nuzzled against her skin and her golden dress-which she had not changed out of. She would have sat up and rubbed her eyes to make sure all of it was real and not some strange dream she was having but the birds covered her arms as well and she could hardly lift them.

One of the white birds, his feathers pure and snowy in appearance, carried something in his mouth. It was a fire-berry the sort that only grew on this one island. He flew over to Ramandu. who stood in the ballroom with his mouth open, waiting for the bird to reach him. Then the berry was dropped right into his open mouth and he swallowed it whole in one gulp without chewing.

Suddenly there was the sound of flapping wings and all of the birds few away, leaving the people, objects, and windowsills they had been perched on behind.

Lucy pulled the bed covers off of herself and walked outside where everyone else now stood. She noticed Edmund and Eustace standing over to one side of the courtyard and went over to them.

Eustace looked at her dress and exclaimed, "Oh, so it was you!" He turned to Edmund looking a little embarrassed. "Sorry for saying you were a two-timing jerk."

Edmund seemed taken aback. "You never said that to me."

Eustace turned red in the face. "Well, I said it to everyone else."

Edmund looked over at the sailors who shrugged their shoulders and nodded.

"Lovely." Edmund muttered sarcastically.

"Look at that!" Lucy gasped, pointing to all of the stars who had come to visit the night before.

All of them were standing in a long straight line with their arms flat by their sides and their faces turned up towards the sky. What happened next looked very much like thousands of shooting stars going 'the wrong way', heading up rather than hurtling down towards or past the earth as most people expect shooting stars to do. To Eustace, it seemed like many silver bullets aiming towards the heaven but Lucy said it looked much nicer than that explanation of it made it seem and she was probably quite right.

Once the stars had all gone home, they had breakfast at Aslan's table again. Rhoop and the other three lords surprised them by saying that they wanted to stay here and live with Ramandu and had no wish either to sail on nor to return to Narnia. At first they worried that Ramandu would not allow it but he said it was fine with him and so they stayed on.

Some of the sailors complained about being home sick but Reepicheep's talk of the adventure and excitement that they would be sure to find at the end of the world soon cured them of that and even the most headstrong sailors found they could not pass up such a chance.

And so, it was with heavy-but excited-hearts that they boarded the Dawn Treader to set sail again, leaving Ramandu's Island behind.

"Do you think we'll ever see it again?" Lucy wondered aloud, as she leaned over the railing to wave goodbye to Rhoop and Ramandu.

"I don't know." Edmund admitted.

"Perhaps we will find a place similar to it some day." Winks said in a meditative tone. "But I've the feeling that we will never return to this , I am not sure why."

"There is something both sad and wonderful about it." Eustace sighed.

"Yes," Lucy and Edmund both agreed with him. "There is."


	19. The sea people of the last sea

This was indeed the start of the end of the world that Narnia existed in and perhaps even the way to Aslan's country. The sea that Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and the others all found themselves was in fact, known as 'The last sea'. Or at least, it would have been if anyone had ever reached there in order to name it. No other name would suit it; even a completely fool would have known that the second they laid eyes on the place.

There were no waves nor any wind and yet the Dawn Treader sailed smoothly along east-bound in an invisible current that not even the most experienced sailors onboard could locate. The glare from the sunlight above them was so strong that it was a wonder that none of them had a headache.

Leaning over the railing on the starboard side of the deck, Edmund noticed something curious-looking at the bottom of the clear water that must have been many unfathomable depths below the ship-something that looked like a house made of dark corals. It had what looked rather like a chimney made from a red-and-white speckled corn shell with little pale-blue bubbles rising up through the colourless water the way smoke comes out of an ordinary rooftop on land.

He turned around slightly to look for Lucy who was standing beside him with her back to the sea and her face looking up at the flawless sky above them.

"Psst...Lu...Lucy..." He tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

"Hmm?" Lucy muttered absent-mindedly.

"Look," Edmund pointed over the railing as she turned around all way and started looking about for the source of whatever it was he found so exciting. "No...not there...down...lower...yes there! What is that?"

"It's a sort of little house, isn't it?" She thought aloud.

"Who would live down there?" Edmund wondered.

"A sea-person, perhaps." Lucy suggested.

The current carried the Dawn Treader further along, far past the little house that Edmund had noticed, towards three or four bigger ones. The difference between them was very much like the difference between a small cozy one or two person home and a large manor which could house many persons and all of the servants and groundskeepers they would need. These bigger sea-houses were surrounded by green-and-ivory coloured seaweed trimmed like grassy lawns and little pink stones around them as decorations.

"Look at those!" Lucy exclaimed in a low voice.

"Your majesty, what is it?" Winks asked, coming over to see for himself.

"Look!" Lucy pointed down to where they were now passing things that looked almost like they might be public places for the underwater town that was coming quite clearly into view.

Winks let out a whistle. "Whoa."

"Isn't it pretty?" Lucy sighed dreamily.

"It is nice-looking, yet..." Winks shook his head in confusion.

"Oh, what is it?" Lucy asked, looking up at the troubled sailor.

"How _does_ it keep?" He said finally.

"The people there must maintain it well." Edmund said simply, as though the matter was perfectly easy to understand.

"What people?" Winks pointed out. "I haven't seen any."

"Well neither have we, to be honest." Edmund admitted.

Lucy suddenly let out a gasp and pointed a little further up. An ocean volcano the colour of glittering diamonds stood like a great glass mountain high up but still under the surface. There, right on top, was a breath-taking castle of jasper, coral, gold, silver, and the palest pink seashells she had ever seen.

"By Jove!" Edmund gasped. "What a place!"

"Still no people." Winks reminded them.

"There _must_ be people." Lucy insisted.

"Look, there's someone!" Edmund noticed a large man with a fish-tail where his legs ought to have been and long white hair on his head, seated on top of an over-sized sea horse.

"He doesn't look happy." Winks shuddered as the sea-man opened his mouth and looked very much like he was shouting at them; shaking his fist at them and also, in his other hand, a long spear he held.

"He's never seen a human, probably." Lucy said in an understanding tone.

"Yes, must be strange for _him_." Edmund joked.

Although the sea-man with the white hair had probably never seen a human, he somehow understood what Edmund was saying and didn't like it because his face went red and bubbles galore flew up out of his mouth.

Edmund winced. "Goodness!"

"Such a temper!" Winks agreed.

"He wont try to come up and get us with that spear, will he?" Lucy shuddered at the thought.

"I don't think he can rise above the water, Lu." Edmund explained, covering his mouth so that in case the sea-man was understanding him by reading his lips, he wouldn't know what he was saying. "Either that or he's afraid to."

"He isn't like the sea-people we knew at Cair Paravel." Lucy had to admit, although she secretly thought she would like to reason with him and be friends if it was at all possible. "Such a shame."

"He must be a very different sort." Edmund had to agree with her on that one. "And it is a pity because if he was like them and could rise up and talk to us, he must have told us where we are headed."

"Where is everyone else though?" Winks said, peering about the land below the sea. "Surely one angry chap doesn't keep the whole place to himself."

Suddenly out of the castle came three beautiful sea-women. They had long golden hair and rose-leaf complexions with long green tails that they half-dragged behind them gracefully. They were bare-chested with nothing covering their large bosoms, which made both Edmund and Winks feel very uncomfortable.

The angry sea-man turned and seemed to be saying something to them and they pointed up to the Dawn Treader with their long white fingers which had little webs between each of them.

"We'd best look away right now." Winks said sternly.

"Why?" Lucy blurted out.

"Sooner or later, the others on this boat are going to wonder what we are looking over at and it wouldn't do to have them see all of this." Winks told them. "They'd fall in love with one of the sea-women as likely as not and try to jump in. Sometimes encounters with the water folk can do more harm to a crew than good."

"Oh, our sailors have more sense than that!" Lucy defended them.

"No, Lu." Edmund sighed, turning away from the sea-world below and looking back up at the sky. "He's right. You don't know how men think sometimes."

"What do you mean, Ed?" Lucy wanted to know.

Edmund's cheeks when a little red. "Oh, well...you see...men...they aren't as...I mean they don't always think things out as well as you girls can...sometimes..."

"In what sense?" Lucy asked curiously.

"Dear Aslan, must I explain it?" Edmund half-laughed nervously.

Lucy nodded.

"Fine then..." Edmund huffed quickly. "Let me sum it up."

"Please do."

"Tired men on boat see pretty sea-girls with no clothes on and they get...ideas..." Edmund was feeling more and more uncomfortable talking to Lucy about this.

" _You_ don't get ideas." Lucy pointed out.

"Well that's because those sea-women aren't you." He smiled at her.

Lucy blushed and smiled back.

A little while later, curiosity compelled her to look back down at the watery town to see if they had passed it yet. She saw something that appeared to be an empty plain with no homes only a few sea-tents, then nothing at all except flocks of fish.

In the mists of those fish was a sea-girl about Lucy's own age with pale milk-coloured skin and light hair that wrapped around the top of her body twice. In her right hand, she held a sea-staff and used it to guide her fish. The little sea-maiden seemed so sad and lonely that Lucy thought at once she would like to be friends with her. It was too bad that she was below the surface and that Lucy was above it.

One of the fish in the sea-girl's flock swam off and she looked around for it. From the little bubbles coming from the sea-girl's lips, Lucy could tell that she was calling for it. The thought that maybe she could see the fish from the ship and somehow alert the sea-girl as to where it was, entered Lucy's head and she leaned over the railing a little more to get a better view.

Unfortunately, it was the same railing that had recently been fixed and it had not been repaired as well as it should have been. The wood cracked and broke, tossing Lucy into the sea water below.

"Lucy!" Edmund shouted, racing over to the broken edge.

All of the sailors heard his cry and ran over to see what the shouting was all about.

Before a proper rescue party could be planned, Edmund flung off his boots, tossed them to Eustace, and then dived down into the depths without another thought.

"King Edmund!" Caspian called after him. "What are you-" He sighed and signaled for the anchor to be dropped.

"I'm telling Alberta!" Eustace blurted out.

One of the sailors looked at him funny.

"Force of habit." Eustace shrugged.

Meantime, Lucy had been hurling down through the perfectly still water in a series of large ripples that looked exactly like dozens of large and small silver rings inside of one another on the surface. She knew how to swim but something about this water made it so hard to move in. It felt as smooth as cream but very thin like a long tunnel pulling you down.

There seemed to be no salt in the water and when Lucy's mouth happened to open a little, she found it tasted sweet, like spring water laced with sugar. She tried to move her arms but they felt so heavy, as did her eyelids and feet. Gasping for air seemed impossible and she felt a calm, non-panic, sort of despair inside of her. It was as though she had at last reached the end of her life but her mind seemed so willing to go to it that it almost frightened her.

Suddenly, she felt arms around her, lifting her above the oh-so-wonderfully-sweet ripples so that she could breathe air again.

It was the little sea-girl. She had noticed Lucy on the boat and had liked her at once. At first she had been nothing short of delighted that the girl from the strange floating thing above was coming down to her-they could be friends and she might never be lonely again! But then she remembered strange stories told by elderly sea-people about other kinds of creatures sort of like themselves but with no fish tails who could not breathe under water just as they could not breathe above it. And although she did not think the word, 'human' in her mind, she knew that these must be of that very sort.

Dropping her staff onto the sandy sea-bed, the sea-girl rescued Lucy and dragged her up to the surface where many anxious sailors and a man with shoulder-length dark hair who was a king, were waiting to pull her back up.

Coming up, the little sea-girl had noticed someone else sinking. A boy, only a little older than the girl was, had jumped in to rescue his companion only to nearly get himself killed. Diving down, she grabbed onto him. His eyes opened and saw her face and they stared at each other for a moment before his eyes started to close again and she had to kick harder with her tail to reach the surface fast enough to save him.

Even though she could not bring her head above the water without holding her breath, she lifted him up with her hands so that the men could help him back onboard.

In a youthful, unrealistic, lonely, sense, the sea-girl had fallen in love with Edmund while she held him. She adored his kindness and loyalty-the way he had dived in to save that girl. She loved his eyes from the second she saw them looking at her. Of course, it was hopeless; he could not come down to her nor could she come up to him and yet she hoped desperately that he felt something towards her, too.

Taking a deep breath, she surfaced so she could see how those on the boat where helping him. She watched and listened, hearing them call him, 'King Edmund'.

Oh, he is a king! She thought dreamily to herself as she dived back under the water for a quick breath of air before coming up again.

Coming as close to the boat as she dared, the sea-girl saw Lucy throw her arms around Edmund's neck and say something to him in a breathless voice.

Oh, please let him say something about me, the sea-girl thought, please anything at all!

However it was not the sea-girl that was in Edmund's thoughts-thankful as he was that she had rescued him and Lucy-it was his Valiant queen who had her arms around him that he was thinking about.

The sea-girl watched and would have cried at what she saw next if she had been the sort of creature who could have had tears. Edmund's arms slipped around Lucy's damp waist and he pulled her close to him, kissing her lips tenderly.

She went back under the water and watched through the little ripples and bubbles as the anchor was raised and the Dawn Treader got smaller and smaller and soon was nothing but a fading shadow in the distance.

Try as she might, the sea-girl could never bring herself to hate her rival-for she had fallen in friendship with Lucy in that one swift moment just as she had fallen in love with Edmund-nor could she ever content herself with the love of a sea-boy who would come into her life years later. Her sea-boy who would come and sweep her off her fins was wonderful in her eyes but he never could measure up to the childish dream of the Narnian king she had rescued in her younger years.

As for those on the Dawn Treader, they went on sailing east-hoping to reach what might be a way to Aslan's country.


	20. Back where we started Sort of

"There's something wrong with the ship, Winks." One of the sailor's said in a low tone that didn't sound quite as annoyed as you might expect it to; rather mellow, in fact. "It seems to be going slower, like it's plowing over something."

Caspian's wife leaned over the edge of the Dawn Treader cautiously, remembering what had happened to Lucy earlier. "What are all of those white things in the water?"

"There's heaps of them!" Eustace declared once he saw the strange floating whiteness for himself.

"Ice?" Caspian guessed.

"Your majesty forgets that it is far to warm for ice." Winks reminded him.

"Can someone lower a bucket down and maybe bring some of it back up so we can try and figure out what this stuff is?" Eustace suggested.

"That's not a bad idea." Caspian agreed, motioning over to some of the sailors who were just standing around behind Winks waiting for orders. "One of you get a bucket and do as he says."

A bucket was lowered and when it was pulled up-feeling much lighter than they had thought it would-they saw it was full of the clearest water they had ever seen as well as heaps and heaps of what looked like large white lilies.

Lucy giggled, reached into the bucket, and plucked. one out. "How lovely!" She raised the flower to her nose, breathing in it's rich but strangely faint scent.

"They can't really be lilies." Eustace decided as he watched Lucy fiddle happily with the soft petals of her flower. "Not like this, growing in heaps in the middle of the ocean."

"They look like lilies to me." Winks said, peering into the bucket himself.

Edmund took a lily out of the bucket and pinned it in Lucy's hair; she leaned back over her shoulder to smile at him.

The Dawn Treader suddenly came to a stop, unable to move another inch forward-the lilies were too thick to sail through in a boat that size.

"We have to row back, I suppose." Winks sighed, realizing it was no use to keep going on.

"But this must be the end of the world, or at least very close to it." Caspian protested, looking about the sea-field of flowers, hoping to find a way around it. "What if we go port and-"

Winks shook his head. "We cannot."

"But why?" Caspian asked.

"It's thicker still that way and even more so to starboard." Winks explained. "The only way would be to turn around."

"They're only flowers." One sailor eager for adventure said. "Can't we just whack 'em with the oars until they're out of the way?"

Reepicheep lifted an oar up just in case Caspian agreed with the sailor's plan. Pattertwig was too busy rubbing his tail against a flower petal Lucy had given him to bother.

"How do we know these are regular lilies?" Eustace insisted, refusing to take an oar that was being handed over to him. "They sure don't grow like regular ones; at least not the ones in the world Edmund, Lucy, and I came from. It might be dangerous."

Reepicheep snorted.

Some of the sailors agreed with Eustace but others thought it was pure rot and that there was nothing wrong with lily-whacking so why shouldn't they press on? But oh, were they not so terribly home-sick after all? Let's just go back to Narnia, some of them said.

While they debated on what to do, Lucy heard her favorite voice of all the voices she had ever heard in her life, calling her. She looked over to the other side of the deck where none of the sailors were standing. There, all alone, his golden mane swaying just a little in a practically non-existent breeze, was Aslan himself.

"Ed!" Lucy tapped him on the shoulder excitedly,

"Reepicheep, we are not going to sail all the way back to where the sea-man was just to attempt single combat with him-I don't care if you don't like that he shook his spear at us." Edmund said firmly, not paying any attention to Lucy.

"Edmund!" She tried again.

"Not now, Lu." Edmund said shortly, not because he was cross but because he was distracted. "Reep, I thought you were set on seeing the end of the world."

Shrugging her shoulders and sighing deeply, Lucy turned around and went over to Aslan who's great cat lips curled up in a lovely golden smile at her.

"Aslan, is this the way to your country?" Lucy asked him, gently reaching out to stroke his soft golden fur.

"Not for you, dear one." Aslan sighed, lowering his head just the slightest bit. "For you, there may come another way from another world. Now, you will have to go home."

"Home?" Lucy echoed, blinking in confusion. "Which home? Narnia? England?"

Aslan's next sigh seemed to come from the deepest parts of his golden self before blowing out of the corners of his mouth. "Lucy, a while ago, Susan had a choice to make, now so do you."

"What do you mean?" Lucy found her voice had suddenly become rather weak and could only imagine how white her face must have gone.

"Edmund is being sent away from Narnia for ever." Aslan explained. "This is his last time here."

"And me?" Lucy said, her voice barely a whisper now.

"You can stay-just as Queen Susan could have. Or, if you wish it, you may go." Aslan lowered his head closer to Lucy's in a reassuring way.

"If I stay, I'll never see Edmund again." Lucy pondered over the two options. "But if I go..." She looked into the Lion's great beautiful shinning eyes-feeling hot tears filling up in her own. "I'll stay, Aslan."

Aslan placed a paw on her right shoulder. "Dear one, are you sure?"

"I can't live without ever seeing you again." Lucy said, fighting back a sob. "I love Edmund but I can live without him if I have to." She looked over her shoulder at him as the tears started to fall like rain. She did love him. She loved him so much it hurt sometimes. But Aslan meant more to her than her own emotions. Aslan was her emotions; he was her joy, her light, her dream, and her happiness.

"We will meet again, Lucy." Aslan promised her. "No matter what world you are in, you can still come to me." He lifted his head up and motioned over to Edmund. "The question is not do you love him more than me; the question is, do you love him more than you love Narnia?"

Lucy reached up and touched the lily in her hair. In a choked up voice she admitted, "I do."

"Then, this is how it will happen," Aslan explained, his voice calm but not free from emotion as you might expect someone with that tone to be. "You, Edmund, and Eustace will get in the Dawn Treader's lifeboat and sail all the way to the end of this world; then you will go home."

"I will see you again soon, wont I?" Lucy said, peering into his eyes eagerly, searching for the answer she wanted so badly.

"To me, all times are soon." Aslan told her.

"And to me?" Lucy asked.

"You will be happy and you will learn." Aslan said kindly, planting a soft velvet-like Lion-kiss on her forehead before suddenly disappearing.

Lucy told everyone what Aslan had said to her and they started preparing the lifeboat.

Caspian and Ramandu's daughter both shed bitter tears, hugging the king, the queen, and the queen's cousin goodbye.

"There now," Edmund said reassuringly-hiding the grief he felt knowing that he would never return, giving Caspian a pat on the back. "You knew we would have to leave and go back to our own world sooner or later."

"Yes," Sobbed Ramandu's daughter, blowing her nose as she spoke. "But this is sooner."

"You know, you don't have to do this, Lu." Edmund reminded her. "There's still time to stay if you want to."

"Edmund, you don't really want me to stay, do you?" Lucy raised an eyebrow at him.

"Goodness, no!" He blurted out before regaining some level of composure and adding, "Unless of course, it's what you really want."

"Ed?"

"Yes?"

She kissed him on the cheek. "Shut up."

"Alright."

"Oh, you might want this back." Caspian took a long silver-coloured object out of a leather pouch he had stored next to one of the cabins and handed it to Edmund.

"My torch!" Edmund exclaimed happily, flicking it on and finding much to his delight that it still worked.

"Goodbye, Reepicheep." Lucy bowed to the little mouse, ready to bid him a respectable goodbye. Then she remembered that they would never see each other again and scooped him up into her arms and cuddled him as she had secretly always longed to do. And Reepicheep, for one short moment, allowed it-even liked it. Afterwards, she did the same to Pattertwig.

"You can keep these." Lucy said, handing her cordial and dagger to Ramandu's daughter.

Edmund took out his sword and gave it to Winks. "Here. Caspian doesn't need it, he has Peter's sword already."

"Maybe I'll consider becoming a knight." Winks decided, admiring the sword as it gleamed in the bright sunlight all around them.

When everyone had finally said their goodbyes and hugged and kissed and cried until they could do so no more, the lifeboat was lowered and all of the sailors watched as Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace disappeared from sight.

"We'll start back for Narnia now." Winks said, taking one last look at his new sword before putting it away.

The life boat went on through an unfelt current until it reached what looked like a giant waterfall, pouring over into nothing. Lucy's hands were instantly grabbed and squeezed tight-one by Eustace and the other by Edmund as the little boat got further and further off the edge. A sort of calm suddenly came over them and they shut their eyes. There was a short moment of falling when their eyes all sprang open at the same time and they found they were not in a boat at the end of the Narnian world anymore.

They were back in Lucy's bedroom at Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta's house, sitting on the guest bed, clinging tightly to the pastel comforter.

"Did it really happen?" Eustace asked breathlessly.

"Yes," Lucy inhaled deeply, looking over at Edmund who grinned at her. "It did."

"At least I got my torch back." He pointed to the flashlight which was now at the foot of the bed.

"So now I'm confused." Eustace joked in a voice he would have never used before his journey on the Dawn Treader. "Do I tell Alberta on you or don't I?"

They all glanced at each other and burst out laughing, looking up at the great sailing ship in the painting which still hung where they had last seen it.

Two and half weeks later, Eustace came back in from checking the mailbox holding a letter with an American post-mark. It was addressed to Edmund, so he read it to himself first.

Reading it, he chuckled and turned a little red in the face. Turning to Lucy, he said, "How would you feel about being an aunt?"

"Wait, what?" Lucy gasped, leaning so she could read the letter over his shoulder. "Oh my gosh!" She put her hand to her mouth in surprise.

"Mum-I mean, Alberta!" Eustace called, racing into the other room. "Guess what?"

Lucy looked at Edmund and shook her head. "Here we go again."

"Well he _is_ still Eustace Scrubb after all." Edmund said, winking at her.

-The End-


End file.
